Skywritings

My own version of the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness (which Chalmers certainly did not invent, but merely named!) is purely epistemic, not ontic: The hard problem is all and only the problem of explaining causally how and why (some) organisms (sometimes) feel.

None of the classical and soothing ontic positions on this (materalism, identity theory, functionalism, epiphenemenalism, etc. etc.) explain a thing. They are simply metaphysical interpretations that we happen to prefer, according to taste. So (who cares, but) I myself happen to like materalism/identity/functionalism metaphysically too: of course the brain generates feeling, somehow. The hard problem is explaining how and why.

Psychokinetic dualism would have been an explanation — “feeling is one of the fundamental causal forces of nature”: then feeling would require no further explanation, any more than gravitation, electromagnetism or the strong and weak nuclear forces do. They’re just fundamental features of the universe; givens.

But feeling is not a fundamental force. It just feels as if it is a fundamental force. It feels as if I do what I do because I feel like it. But that explanation is false. All evidence is against it. Why and how I do anything and everything that I do is fully explained by the original four fundamental forces, without remainder. That’s why it’s so hard to explain the remainder: I don’t just do; I feel. Why? How?

And the rest of the ontic preferences on offer are simply empty, vacuous: They fit the evidence, of course — namely, the fact that we feel — but they do not explain it causally, which is what solving the “hard problem” would require.

So much for “identity theory”.

Perspective/Person Numerology. 1st-person/3rd-person gibberish is even worse. Not only does it explain nothing, like the various ontic stances, merely restating the facts, obvious to everyone (everyone who feels, of course): (some) biological organisms (sometimes) feel; other things don’t. But in addition, 1st/3rd “person” is an incoherent play on words, because there is no “3rd person perspective ” (or “aspect” or “state” or “phenomenon”)! That canard is just a consequence of the loose use of words when discussing consciousness: To conceal the fact that we can explain absolutely nothing, we use a huge, redundant and noisy list of weasel-words designed to make it look as if there are many different things to explain, and that we may have made more headway with some than others. Whereas in reality all the synonyms are just smoke, and there is and always was only one thing to explain: feeling.

Here, let me rattle off some of the weasel words by rote: consciousness, awareness, qualia, subjectivity, experience, phenomenality, intentionality, aboutness, mental (there are many, many more),

Metaphysical Monte: In this long tradition of N-card Monte or shell-games — just shuffling around terminology while hiding the fact that one is not explaining a thing — the distinction between the “1st person” and the “3rd person” “perspective” has been a real corker. There is no “3rd person perspective”! There are feelings, which are felt by feeling organisms (feelers). And there is the world, which, apart form those feeling organisms, is felt by and feels nothing. We can talk about feeling organisms, and what they feel. Or we can talk about the unfeeling things and processes in the world. We are not taking a different “perspective.” The only “perspective” is the feeling one (yours, ours, mine). And it amounts to no more nor less than the fact that I feel.

I am a feeling organism. Video cameras are not, and they do not change “perspectives” when forces move them around. They just move. The “spec” in perspective refers to seeing, and seeing is felt. Otherwise it’s just photon transduction. When I speak about, say, F=MA I am not “adopting a 3rd-person perspective.” (All persons, whether 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 5th, feel). What I am doing (when I take the so-called “3rd person perspective”) is simply thinking/talking about the unfeeling things and processes in the world. That is either not a perspective at all, or it’s my usual “1st-person” perspective, since it feels like something to talk and think about unfeeling things and processes too.

So I have renounced for a lifetime all these silly, non-explanatory buzzwords that give the illusion of making some sort of inroad on the “hard problem.” Nothing more nor less than a causal explanation of how and why (some) organisms (sometimes) feel will solve this epistemic problem (which I think is insoluble, because of the nature of causation and of causal explanation).

The Phenomenal/Access Consciousness Distinction.Just as bad as the incoherent 1st/3rd person pseudo-distinction (a play on words for the “3rd-person perspective” — or “aspect” or what-have-you) is Ned Block’s monumentally incoherent distinction between “phenomenal consciousness” and “access consciousness.” Without the supernumerary (hence superogatory) words supervening on the notion, there is just one consciousness, and that is feeling. If a brain state is feels like something to be in, it is conscious. If it is unfelt, it is unconscious. Unfeeling entities and unfelt processes are no kind of “consciousness.” And the only thing that feelers feel is feeling.

Information (data) can be “accessed,” and if it feels like something to access that information then the access is felt access, hence conscious. (So what? Why state the obvious in such a convoluted, verbose way?) And if accessing the data is unfelt, then it is unfelt. That is not consciousness at all. It is unfelt data-processing, as in a computer, or in unconscious parts or states of the brain. So “PC vs AC” is just another incoherent pseudo-distinction, replete with superfluous weasel-words…

“Panpsychism” may be the worst ontic dodge of all. It derives its pseudo-explanatory pseudo-sense from the notion that feeling may be a primitive “property” of the universe — which is rather like the psychokinetic dualism I mentioned earlier, but (probably) without the kinesis. (I say probably because I find panpsychism so vague and arbitrary and incoherent that I can hardly get a handle on what panpsychists mean to mean!).

According (I think) to panpsychists, everything in the universe, and every part of everything, feels: muons, leptons, atoms, molecules, stones, chairs, tables, plants, animals, people, planets, galaxies. Not only does that seem to be a rather profligate way of trying to solve an ostensibly local problem in the biosphere of one small planet in the universe, but, again, it explains absolutely nothing — or explains it only in the empty sense that the potential for life is latent in every carbon molecule in the universe, given conditions that are like those of the earth’s biosphere). Panpsychism is just another empty piece of metaphsyical hermeneutics, to be accepted or rejected purely as a matter of taste. Worse, it is metaphysically profligate, casting Occam’s Razor to the 4 winds and multiplying consciousness infinitely beyond necessity (or visibllity). And, still worse, panpsychism is incoherent, because it creates a mereological and combinatorially absurdity: Everything and every part of everything, and every combination of parts of everything, feels. Take it or leave it. Feeling seemed (felt-like!) a “simple” before: You pinch me and it hurts. But now, it seems, you pinch me and not only does the whole universe wince, but so do all the NP-complete permutations and combinations of every part of it wince. And that’s without mentioning the problem of individuating all those parts and combinations of parts. Because, till further notice, there are no absolute “boundaries” around physical entities: an atom is an atom, but is also part of a molecule, which is a part of many bigger things, and the atom also has parts and parts of parts and combinations of parts of parts, down to warps in space time and jingling strings. None of this is a problem for physicists, who do not need individual, absolutely independent entities. But the trouble with panpsychicizing all of that is that feeling is fundamentally individual: An organism feels what it feels, and nothing else in the universe feels what it feels. That is a kind of individuation and boundary that is not present for other properties, and I don’t think there is any profit in pretending it’s universal. Certainly no explanatory profit, at any rate.

Depuis 37 ans, la municipalité de Sainte-Perpétue accueille sur son territoire ce qui est devenu un des plus grands festivals d’été du Québec. Bien qu’il soit présenté et perçu comme un divertissement familial inoffensif et amusant, ses organisateurs, ses participants et ses spectateurs célèbrent en réalité, chaque année, trois journées consécutives d’abus cruels envers les animaux :

« Ce Festival ne respecte pas les 5 libertés fondamentales des animaux et va à l’encontre de la reconnaissance de leur nature sensible, reconnue récemment par l’Ordre des Médecins Vétérinaires du Québec » écrit Jean-Jacques Kona-Boun, DMV.

Le traitement des animaux à ce festival vient d’être condamné par la SPCA de Montréal.

Les cochons, truies, porcelets, verrats, sangliers sont forcés de supporter la terreur et le supplice. Ils sont parqués, effrayés, dans un enclos et pourchassés par des humains qui sautent sur eux, les tirent, les poussent, les battent et les blessent sans souci ni pour la panique qui est la leur ni pour leurs douleurs.

Les images et vidéos des festivals passés montrent des créatures terrifiées, couinant désespérément, maintenues de force dans la boue aqueuse, incapables de respirer, attaquées par l’arrière, traînées. Elles sont larguées sans ménagement sans merci dans un tonneau par des individus 2-3 fois leur taille, totalement indifférents à leur détresse et à leurs blessures, certains portant un casque pour se protéger, mais ne s’inquiétant aucunement pour la protection de leurs victimes.

Images: 1 2 3 4 5 Vidéos: A B

Ces animaux innocents ne comprennent pas pourquoi ils sont soudainement poursuivis, terrorisés et brutalisés par une horde d’êtres humains violents et accablés par une foule de spectateurs hurlant.

Célébrer la domination d’animaux sans défense ne peut que traumatiser les enfants les plus sensibles, encourager un comportement abusif chez les enfants les plus agressifs et mener à la violence et à la criminalité à l’âge adulte. Les recherches en psychologie et en criminologie démontrent que les personnes qui commettent des actes de cruauté à l’encontre des animaux sont également susceptibles de maltraiter leurs semblables humains.*

*Ascione FR & Arkow P (Eds) (1999) Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention Purdue U Press

Cette brutalité aveugle couvre le Québec de honte, sans compter la souffrance indicible qu’elle inflige à des créatures sans défense. Une brutalité qui ne nous viendrait jamais à l’esprit de tolérer envers nos animaux de compagnie ou nos semblables humains.

Le Manifeste québécois, déjà signé par plus de 46 000 Québécois, demande la reconnaissance juridique d’un statut d’êtres sensibles aux animaux afin de pouvoir prévenir des tels abus.

Une pétition qui exhorte les artistes de ne pas prêter leur nom et leur art à ce spectacle a déjà plus de 1 500 signatures et une autre pétition priant le maire de Sainte-Perpétue de ne plus supporter ce sadisme a déjà plus de 18 000 signatures.

Les médias, les animateurs et les commanditaires sont priés de faire pression pour la réforme de cet événement : à la place de ce spectacle sans-cœur et sadique, proposez un divertissement familial non-violent et non-abusif, propre à inspirer la bienveillance et la compassion chez les générations futures.

Jusqu’à ce qu’il soit amendé par l’élimination de toute souffrance animale, les médias et le grand public sont priés de répondre à l’appel de Georges Laraque à boycotter ce festival faisandé.

For 37 years now, the town of Ste-Perpétue has been conducting what has become one of Quebec’s biggest summer festivals. But although it is portrayed and perceived as harmless family fun and entertainment, the organizers, participants and spectators have in reality been celebrating 3 consecutive days of cruel animal abuse.

“This Festival,” writes Jean-Jacques Kona-Boun, DMV, “fails to respect the 5 fundamental rights of animals and goes against the recognition of the fact that animals feel, as recognized recently by the Ordre des Médecins Vétérinaires du Québec” [translation: original texts in French].

The treatment of the animals at this festival has just been condemned by the SPCA of Montreal.

Pigs, piglets, hogs, sows and boars are forced to endure terror and torment. Frightened animals are penned in, chased, jumped on, pulled, pushed, battered and bruised by humans without a thought for their panic or pain.

Videos from past Festivals show terrified, desperately squealing creatures being dragged and dropped into containers with no concern for trauma or injury, forcibly held down in watery mud where they cannot breath, attacked from behind and pounced on from heights by people twice their size, some of the humans wearing helmets to protect themselves, with no thought of protection or mercy for their victims. 

Images: 1 2 3 4 5 Videos: A B

These innocent animals have no idea why they are suddenly being pursued and terrorized and brutalized by screaming crowds of violent human beings.

Celebrating dominance over helpless animals can only traumatize the more sensitive children and encourage abusive behaviors in the more aggressive children, which can in turn lead to violence and criminality in adult life. Research in psychology and criminology has repeatedly found that people who commit acts of cruelty against animals are likely to hurt their fellow humans too.*

*Ascione FR & Arkow P (Eds) (1999) Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention Purdue U Press

This wanton brutality only brings shame upon Quebec, along with untold suffering for defenseless creatures – suffering of a kind that we would never dream of allowing to be inflicted on our pets, nor on any human being.

The Quebec Manifesto, already signed by more than 46,000 Québécois, call for according animals the legal status of sentient beings instead of property, as now, in order to prevent animal abuses and suffering.

A petition calling on artists not to lend their names or their art to this Festival already has over 1,500 signatures and another petition asking the mayor of Sainte-Perpétue to stop supporting this animal abuse already has more than 18,000 signatures.

Media, presenters and sponsors of this event are asked to transform it into nonviolent, nonabusive family entertainment, inspiring kindness and compassion in our future generations.

Until and unless the Ste Perpétue Festival is reformed to eliminate all animal abuse, all media and the general public are asked to heed the call of Georges Laraque to boycott this event.

A mendacious monument

glorifying Magyar self-pity

and concealing Hungarian complicity

but in the long run and the wide world

it will have the opposite effect…

Koubeissi, M. Z., Bartolomei, F., Beltagy, A., & Picard, F. (2014). Electrical stimulation of a small brain area reversibly disrupts consciousness. Epilepsy & Behavior, 37, 32-35.

This center cuts off awakeness, not (just) consciousness. Inactivating the claustrum seems to put the subject into an immobile trance that is not sleep (which is an active dynamical state) but a kind of “suspended animation.”

But consciousness means feeling — feeling anything at all. It is not (just) awakeness.

If something could “cut off” feeling while leaving “doing” intact (moving, talking, etc.), then it would make us into the Zombies that we would have been if we were not conscious. (Now that would be a real “on-off” switch!)

But there is no such center, or switch. Because consciousness is much more fundamental and pervasive than mere awakeness.

And for some reason that no one can understand or explain, there (probably) cannot be Zombies — at least not with human-scale (or probably even any biological-scale) doing-capacity. To be able to explain how and why that is the case would require solving the mind/body problem (the “hard” problem).

By the way, like claustrum inhibition, general anaesthesia too cuts of awakeness but it also induces a lot of other accompanying changes in state along with it. (Maybe, if it is not harmful, claustrum inhibition could be used for surgery instead of pharmacologically inducing sleep or coma?)

And local anaesthesia merely cuts off sensation (which also happens to be felt): It makes the stimulation of the anesthesized location unfelt (but of course it leaves all other feeling intact).

As was brilliantly done recently to free a dog locked in a car in the heat by mobilizing a large number of people in the area via a cellular and Facebook, a global network of animal-lovers should be set up to alert people in any area immediately of any abuse witnessed: mistreatment, abandonment, dog-fights, etc.

Comme on vient de faire de façon géniale pour libérer un chien qui était découvert vérrouillé dans une voiture durant la chaleur –qu’on à sauvé par une mobilisation d’un grand nombre de personnes à travers Facebook — les amis des animaux devraient créer des réseaux globaux Facebook pour avertir par cellulaire instantanément tous ceux qui sont près lorsqu’on voit un abus, quoi que ça soit: abandon, maltraitement, combat de chien pitbull etc.

The Internet, instead of helping to democratize and integrate has furnished extremist sects with an unprecedentedly powerful weapon for recruitment, segregation and destruction.

“animals that provide us with healthy, life-giving food deserve not to be subject to torment and agony and immeasurable misery”
        — Daniel Payne, “Why You Should Eat ‘Humane’ Meat,” The Federalist, June 24 2014

Agreed.

So too do animals who do not provide us with healthy, life-giving food deserve not to be subject to torment and agony and immeasurable misery.

No living, feeling creature deserves to be subject to torment and agony and immeasurable misery — perhaps not even those who have subjected others to torment and agony and immeasurable misery.

But neither does any animal deserve to have its life taken to feed humans if it is not necessary for the survival and health of humans.

And it isn’t.

Nor is it possible to deprive a living, feeling creature of its life humanely, any more than it is possible to rape someone humanely.

Euthanasia is a way to end a life of torment and agony and immeasurable misery humanely.

But the needless slaughter of healthy, helpless animals is not euthanasia — nor should it be called humane.

At best some slaughter can be called “less-inhumane” than slaughter that causes torment and agony and immeasurable misery — just as rape without strangulation can be called “less-inhumane” than rape with strangulation.

But unnecessary life-taking is not and cannot be humane.

Craig, W. J., & Mangels, A. R. (2009). Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(7), 1266-1282.

Eisnitz, G. A. (2009). Slaughterhouse: The shocking story of greed, neglect, and inhumane treatment inside the US meat industry. Prometheus Books.

Rollin, B. E. (2009). Ethics and euthanasia. The Canadian Veterinary Journal, 50(10), 1081.

[Note: The following comments are based solely on the two 3-minute video segments linked below. Professor Chomsky has since replied that he has written a lot more on the subject of animal rights; that he does consider that animals have rights (though not the same ones as humans), and that he has supported animal rights movements for years. He considers species-destruction to be the most severe attack on animal rights by far, and one in which we are all complicit in our daily habits and decisions (travel, heating, etc.); it is accordingly one of his highest priorities. Professor Chomsky also points out that some animals are afforded some legal protection (e.g. in animal experimentation). But the animal slaughter that concerns Professor Chomsky most appears to be natural environment destruction rather than the suffering and slaughter of animals bred for that purpose. Though not a vegan, Professor Chomsky is opposed to factory farming.]

Noam Chomsky is a scholar and an ethical thinker for whom I (and countless others) have boundless admiration and respect. He is in many respects the moral conscience of our planet and our age.

Although Professor Chomsky has sympathy for the cause of animal suffering, it is not his highest priority (and he stresses that we are constantly having to make decisions about moral priorities throughout our lives).

Perhaps because he assigns them a lower priority or urgency, however, some of the details of Professor Chomsky’s views on the animal question do not seem to have undergone as deep and rigorous an analysis as his views on the ethical questions to which he assigns a higher priority:

“Rights” & Responsibilities. Professor Chomsky states (as have others), that in order to have certain “rights,” an individual must also have responsibilities — and animals do not have responsibilities.

It is certainly true that animals do not (and cannot) have responsibilities. Not even a trained seeing-eye dog can be literally said to have responsibilities.

It is not clear, however, whether what we mean by having “rights” — either in law or in ordinary language — necessarily entails anything about having (or being capable of having) responsibilities (although in practice the two are often linked).

Professor Chomsky himself gives an example: human infants. (Professor Chomsky admits — without further comment — that according rights to human infants even though they have no responsibilities is “speciesist.” The same point could be made about the rights of the severely handicapped.)

Harming Animals. But this semiological concern need not deter us. It is not substantive. We can refrain from using the word “rights” at all here, and speak only of the responsibilities (obligations) of humans:

We can agree to make it illegal for a human to harm another sentient (feeling) being intentionally except if it is necessary for the survival or health of a human.

(This would be much the same as making it illegal to kill someone, exculpable only if it was necessary for defence.) For animals, this would not yet be ideal, but it would be a night-to-day improvement over their lot today.

This also covers the (trivial) case of insects (which many others, too, have invoked as a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the notion of animal rights): It’s alright to kill mosquitos or flies to protect people from bites or health hazards. Yet harming even insects wantonly or for pleasure can and should be unlawful too, and there is nothing absurd or ridiculous about that.

“Personhood”. Professor Chomsky does not discuss this topic in these 2 videos, but similar semiological points have been raised about attempts to accord animals the status of “persons” under the law. Yes, describing animals as persons is at odds with what we mean by “person” in ordinary language. But the law often uses words differently; for example, a corporation is a “person” (with rights and responsibilities) under the law.

Again, however, nothing substantive is at issue. Animals would gain the same legal protection if we agreed to make it illegal for a human to harm another sentient (feeling) being intentionally except if it is necessary for the survival or health of a human. Both “rights” and “personhood” can be left unmentioned if it causes confusion or opposition.

Decisions. As to personal choices: A lion has no choice about being a carnivore. It cannot survive or be healthy without eating other sentient (feeling) beings. Human beings (being omnivores) can. And they can choose not to eat animals, just as they have chosen not to murder, rape, have slaves, or subjugate women — and have accordingly outlawed it.

In most of the US and Europe today, it is feasible and easy to be a vegan, and not consume animal products. (The “opportunity costs” are small, and vanish once one has been doing it for a while.) Choosing not to eat meat at all is not like choosing to renounce all automated transport in order not to add to one’s carbon footprint.

Priorities. Last point: Although individuals can indeed decide their own moral priorities, it is nevertheless a fact that humans are now protected by law from being harmed by humans, but animals are not; only some special kinds of harm to animals under special conditions (such as laboratory experimentation) have some restrictions on them (minimal ones, minimally monitored or enforced).

The number of animals killed by humans every year exceeds the total number of humans killed by humans in all wars since the beginning of humanity. To my mind, that makes the protection of animals the most pressing moral priority of all.

J’ai le principe de ne pas remercier les véganes ni pour être végane ni pour faire tout ce qu’ils font à l’aide des animaux — et je ne souhaite pas de remerciements moi non plus. C’est un peu par superstition. Mon raisonement est que le seul espoir pour les animaux c’est que la majorité de l’humanité soit de nature disposé à devenir végane, exactement comme nous. Que ça soit normal. Donc il ne faut pas que nous nous traitions d’exceptionnels, pour le fait d’être déjà rendu là. On ne veut pas renforcer l’impression que le véganisme est destiné à toujours rester minoritaire.

Pourtant, il faut que je fasse hommage à la créativité, et aux infatigables exertions, dévoument et zèle de Marie-Claude et de Marion sans lesquelles cet événement remarquable n’aurait jamais vu son jour. Moi, j’ai beaucoup jacassé en tant que « porte-parole officiel » (ainsi délégué par M-C & M), mais les vraies héroïnes — je ne dirai pas anges, pour insister qu’elles sont en effet humaines, comme nous tous — ce sont Marion et Marie-Claude.

Ainsi, aux noms des 150+milliards p/a sans nom, sans voix, sans havre, permettez moi de vous transmettre: « morituri vos salutamus » pour avoir été à l’avant garde du sauvetage, sinon de nous-mêmes, alors de nos descendants.

Merci M & M-C

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J’avais mes doutes pour l’exhibition des animaux morts avant la marche, mais j’ai fini par être très, très ému en les voyant. Et le discours de Christelle/Emme était très émouvant aussi. Je ne suis plus à l’aise en me balladant dans les rues avec les restos en plein air, sachant à quel horrible prix sont achetés ces plaisirs du palais. C’était si réconfortant d’être entouré de 13h à 15h d’un autre monde qui n’avaient aucune complicité dans ces horreurs. Le seul espoir pour les animaux, c’est que nous ne sommes aucunement différents de la majorité des humains, sauf que nous avons vu, nous avons compris, et nous avons fait ce que tout le monde ferait. On n’a qu’à leur ouvrir les yeux, et ainsi leurs coeurs.

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Ne prenez pas au sérieux le témoignage des quantités de gens qui disent « J’peux pas supporter les véganes parce qu’ils se sentent supérieurs aux autres ! » C’est des gens qui commencent à se sentir mal à l’aise, et c’est leur propre végane interne — c’est à dire leur conscience — qui parle… Faut les encourager, en disant : « Pas du tout, nous sommes exactement comme vous ! »

Et surtout, faut pas passer le temps à se disputer avec les gens qui disent « je m’en fous des animaux » . Faut passer à la parole avec d’autres qui ont des coeurs susceptibles à l’ouverture. Il y au moins 150 milliards de victimes innocentes et sans défense chaque année qui dépendent de nous et qui ne seront point protégées par des disputes inutiles avec les sans-coeurs. Nous devons compter sur le fait que la vaste majorité de l’humanité ne consiste pas des psychopathes mais des potentiels véganes.