Chomsky on consciousness

[Laird]

But physical matter still exists, is part of our reality, both to our senses and to our instruments - it's irrelevant to the validity of interactive Dualism whether or not we understand in some ultimate sense what matter really is, and have a clear definition of it. We know from countless experiences that we in fact interact with the world as some sort of immaterial spirit manifesting in the world through the physical brain and body - hence interactive Dualism.

Yep, that's basically my conclusion after watching the video and reading the two linked articles (Edward Feser's and Noam Chomsky's). Along similar lines, this from the video resonated with me:

36:07 Phillip to Noam: "It's almost sounding like now you're saying 'We do know what matter is, and we know some of it doesn't involve consciousness'".

Noam seems to be by some measure a materialist, or, as Edward Feser puts it in his article, a "modest naturalis[t]". This in part is evidenced by this comment of Noam's in the video, in which he essentially assumes a "brain generates mind" position:

35:23 Noam: "...what the neural basis is for consciousness."

I also find it difficult to take seriously on consciousness somebody who seriously doubts whether dogs and fish are conscious, as here:

31:00 Noam: "I take the simpleminded view that I'm conscious, maybe my dog is, but the table in front of me isn't."

34:51 Noam: "I'm conscious, my table isn't - not so sure about my, say, a fish or something else, maybe."

This is something that has puzzled me for a while ~ that the Physicalist can be so confident that they understand the base nature of reality, but have apparently zero understanding of what matter actually is!

So, what is "matter" then? What is that causes the atom? The protons? The electrons? The neutrons? Quarks are a favoured answer by some... but, it results in the same question... the can has merely been kicked down the road.

To be more precise... what is it that gives atoms, subatomic particles, quarks, their respective properties? What is it that gives water its properties? Two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms? What is it that gives these atoms their properties? And so, and so forth...

The only answers I see the Physicalist giving are just... smaller particles. Which seems to logically be leading to the eventual problem of an infinite regress. Smaller and smaller particles needed to explain each layer of particles just becomes very unsatisfying, due to there being no actual answers... only deflections and promissory notes.

There needs to be a base substance somewhere, and it is logically not physical in any way, even ignoring consciousness for the time being. It is an unknown that has zero physical properties, even if it provides the basis for them. It won't be a wave or a particle nor a field or force. It will be something undetectable with the instruments of Physicalist science, because they are limited to detecting physical things.

/ramble

A very succinct ramble IMHO!

Furthermore, I'm not even happy including quarks in the list of particles that are supposed to be part of the explanation, because it is accepted that individual quarks cannot even be observed. Quarks are just convenient because they legitimise a chunk of mathematics!

I think it is also vital to realise just how tenuous modern physical explanations are.

For example, chemistry is almost entirely observational. There used to be the idea when I was a student, that chemistry research would soon be performed on the computer. Computers have become much more powerful than back then, but the concept of computation turning chemistry into an obsolete subject has receded.

One big problem is that the maths expands out into an impossible tangle for all but the simplest problems.

David