UTOK, Nagel and the Hard Problem. Something is not right here

Research and Sense-Making
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I am new to UTOK. Maybe I have misunderstood something, but it looks to me like UTOK’s approach is fundamentally misguided. Gregg Henriques does not appear to understand the relevance of the Hard Problem of consciousness, and I think that is a show-stopper. Unless I have misunderstood UTOK, it is just plain old “emergence” theory, albeit with some fancy clothes on. It claims consciousness somehow “emerges” from an underlying physical realm, but does not explain how such a thing can possibly happen, or make any sense.

The AI review tells me this: “In essence, UTOK proposes that by addressing the “problem of psychology” and developing a new grammar for understanding the relationship between the material world and subjective experience, we can make progress towards understanding the hard problem of consciousness.”

New grammar can’t solve the hard problem. It can’t fix materialism.

This link homes in on the issue:

Donald Hoffman’s Errors from the Perspective of UTOK | by Gregg Henriques | Unified Theory of Knowledge | Medium

I have read this article twice now, and I still don’t have the faintest idea what Henriques is going on about. It looks to me like Daniel Dennett level of incomprehensible bullshit. At the end you are left thinking What the f**k did I just read?

This statement, refering to Donald Hoffman, sums it up:

Second, he accepts that there is a profound “hard problem of consciousness” in the move from objective description of brain activity and neurocognitive correlates into the explicit qualities of subjective states.

This is a straightforward denial that the HP exists. It absolutely does exist, and it has no solution.

My position on this is exactly the same as that of Thomas Nagel. Nagel also “accepts” that there is a profound HP. In fact he’s gone so far as to write a book claiming that we need to completely rethink evolutionary theory, cosmology and the mind-matter relationship because of it. Nagel is a naturalist-atheist-skeptic who is proclaiming the need for the scientific component of 2R, and the whole thing spins on the failure of materialism.

I don’t think it is possible for Henriques and Nagel to both be correct, and I think it is absolutely clear which one of them is correct. Nagel hits the nail right on the head; UTOK looks to me to be total garbage.

Can anybody explain in fewer than 2000 words why we should believe that materialism can account for consciousness — that mind can “emerge” from matter?

Are there lots of materialists in 2R? I find this very difficult to understand.

For me, the simplest way to explain what 2R needs to be is in terms of three hugely influential ideas that are based on false assumptions:

(1) Growth based economics (based on the assumption infinite growth is possible in a finite system). Solution: commit to post-growth economics (whatever that is).
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(2) Postmodern antirealism (which for me might as well include Hoffman’s anti-realism – he goes too far). Solution: commit to epistemic structural realism.

(3) Metaphysical materialism (because of the HP). Solution: commit to post-materialistic science (whatever that is).

We need all three. UTOK is a continuation of materialistic science. From my perspective, materialism can no more be smuggled into the new paradigm than postmodernism or growth-based economics can.

My problem with this is it looks to me like Nagel warrants a major role in 2R and that UTOK is a confusing distraction and a mistake. And yet I see no mention of Nagel here, but plenty of mention of UTOK. And I think it is the Hard Problem that decides which is which…but presumably UTOKers will disagree.

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re: article in Psychology Today.

The hard problem of consciousness has framed consciousness studies for a generation. We confess that we both used to believe it was appropriately considered to be a single problem. However, deeper analysis has revealed that it conflates two very different problems. First, there is a zoomed-in, scientific problem that can be considered the neurocognitive engineering problem or, alternatively, the Real Problem of Mind2. Second, there is the zoomed-out philosophical problem. This is the enlightenment gap that resulted in the problem of psychology. Our forthcoming book will explain how EN can effectively resolve the second problem with significant consequences for addressing the first.

OK, so at the end in turns out that Henriques does not have a solution to the HP. He has split the HP in two. Of these the first one (what he has called “the enlightenment gap”) he claims he will explain how to solve in a book that isn’t out yet. But that isn’t the real HP – that’s the other one (which he wrongly calls an engineering problem), and about this all he says is that the forthcoming theory has “significant consequences for addressing”.

This is indeed exactly the sort of incredibly complicated, rambling non-answer that Dennett spent his entire career peddling. Henriques doesn’t get it. He’s barking up the wrong tree, just like Dennett was.

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Yep, it is a load of nonsense.

The UTOK maps the evolution of human consciousness into five steps. The first step is referred to as the “base of sentience.” This refers to the emergence of feeling states, such as pleasure or pain. In "Untangling the World Knot of Consciousness,

What does “emergence” mean? There’s the HP, right there. Materialists always end up using a meaningless word to cover it up, and in this case it is “emerge”. How can X “emerge” from Y when none of the component parts of X are present in Y?

Having skipped over the HP without recognising it, the rest of the theory then appears to explain consciousness, but the sleight of hand – the trick – has already taken place. It was all hidden behind a single usage of the word “emergence”. Nowhere in the rest of that article is it explained what that word is supposed to mean – it does not explain how it is conceptually possible for mind to emerge from matter – it just makes an unsupported and unexamined assertion that it happened.

This is exactly what Nagel has always rejected.

This basic five-step model affords us a way to address, frame, and begin to resolve the explanatory gap in the philosophy and science of consciousness.

It does nothing of the sort. It offers nothing but smoke and mirrors.

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https://ctr4process.org/article/the-paradigm-of-emergence-a-unifying-worldview-for-a-divided-world-and-a-solution-to-the-meaning-crisis/

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That isn’t UTOK though.

I agreed with most of it, though I believe Azarian is missing an essential part of the picture. For example, it is not obvious how synchronicity fits into this scheme of things.

Saying that the universe is in some ways teleological or self-organising is one thing. Saying that there is no hard problem and that consciousness can emerge from matter is a very different thing. Life can “emerge” without any hard problem. The problem is very specific to consciousness – mind can’t just “emerge” from matter without setting up the logical problem Chalmers calls the Hard Problem and Nagel identifies as unsolvable for materialism.

This problem is conceptual, not organisational. The problem is not like “what use is half an eye?”. We can’t even ask the question “What use is half a consciousness?” It is a logically different sort of question, which is why the question makes no intuitive sense. The UTOK proposal is consciousness started “in flashes”. No explanation is forthcoming as to how the first flash happened or how the “flash” is related to the underlying neural processes. In other words, it looks very much like Henriques has simply failed to understand the nature of the HP (as many others have, including Dennett and Dawkins).

I haven’t yet come to a conclusion about Azarian. I suspect he’s missing the key insight also. Does he explain how this teleology works? Or does his explanation end with “The universe is just teleological”? Because a better explanation is available.

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I think the question you’re raising about the hard problem is an important one, but also, as the name suggests, one that we’re not going to be able to resolve easily.

I did my PhD on the hard problem of consciousness (specifically attempts to address it using ‘higher-order thought theories’). And my current take is, in short, that consciousness is the single biggest scientific mystery of our time. And part of what I mean by that is that none of the hundreds of different theories of consciousness out there, from Dennett-style materialism and neutral monism, to neo-dualism and panpsychism, are fully satisfactory. And in particular there is widespread disagreement on whether the ‘hard problem’ is worth taking seriously, as opposed to being ‘dissolved’ in a Dennett-style approach.

So I suspect you’re right that the hard problem (and the meta-problem of whether to take the hard problem seriously) is an important issue, and also that approaches like UTOK don’t yet have all the answers. But I also think it’s very reasonable for proposals for a Second Renaissance to remain if not neutral, then at least open to very different approaches to consciousness here.

If you think of Second Renaissance as basically a political project that involves changes in culture and consciousness, then what seems critical for such a project is an understanding of the mechanisms of changes in consciousness - and such understandings, whether they involve meditation, psychedelics, cyborgism or new cultural or relational practices, can be explored to a large degree independepently of the underlying metaphysics of consciousness.

At the same time I think you’re right to suggest that understanding the metaphysics of consciousness could be a useful contribution to the overall 2R picture, and indeed could inform understandings of the mechanisms of consciousness change.

I’ll also acknowledge that I’m not very familiar with Nagel’s theory and would like to learn more about this. But I’d be particularly interested to hear more from you about the implications such a view would have for the second renaissance project, aside from making it more palatable to those with particular background assumptions.

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Hi Jonah

I think maybe I should start a thread specifically about the hard problem of consciousness and what it has got to with 2R. It will probably attract more interest if it is in a thread of its own rather than a thread about UTOK.

It is not just an important issue. I’d say it is probably the single most important issue, because it is the key to getting the scientific community moving in the right direction.

I will post a new thread at some point today.

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