How is consciousness even possible? : Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Metaphysics and Epistemology » How is consciousness even possible? » How is consciousness even possible?

How is consciousness even possible?
materialism implies it cannot exist

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

How is consciousness even possible?

Makarismos
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Location: Uk, Midlands
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 649

Posted 05/06/08 - 10:47 AM:	#151
What about Microsoft windows? It runs on a computer, in microchips. They are the physical component of the system, and yet it seems difficult to explain vista in terms of what is happening on a computer chip. Is this another seemingly strongly emergent property that is actually a weakly emergent property? If so, I think I agree that no system could have what you call "strongly emergent properties". Cheers

Simple Occam
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 14, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 512

Posted 05/06/08 - 12:16 PM:	#152
reincarnated wrote: Why do you think emergence is not a physical process? Emergence simply refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions - what is there about this type of process which makes emergence, in your opinion, "non-physical"? If, as I suspect, you are referring to "strong emergence" (see Wikipedia) then I would agree that such strong emergence (if it exists at all, which is debatable) could be argued to be "non-physical" in nature. However the emergence I refer to in my posts in this thread is simply "weak emergence", and there is nothing implicitly non-physical about weak emergence. Emergence is different than the part-whole relationship that defines any complex structure. Would you say that water emerges or arises from H2O or that water simply IS H2O? The opposite of emergentism is reductionism. Water IS H2O because all the observable properties of water are explained by the interations that occur among its component parts. If you want to call that weak emergence I wouldn't object, as long as you mean to refer to the part-whole relationship that water and H2O have. Emergence, weak or strong, cannot be a physical process if it cannot be explained reductionistically. So if it can be explained reductionistically, it's not emergent. And if it cannot then it's not a cause in the same sense that other things are causes, thus undermining the causal completeness of physical science. Regarding consciousness, if it is an emergent property then it, too, undermines the casual completness of science. But if it's not, it's hard to understand how it could be anything real in the world. That's why I proposed we think about consciousness as what it is like to be a perceiving subject (ie, animal). Thus it is identical to the intrinsic nature of a sentient animal. This is not an emergent property because it is identical to the neurophysiology (brain) of the animal. Since all philosophers (or anyone capable of thinking about these things) are animals that have the condition of being conscious (at least most of the time), we tend to overlook the fact that what we recognize as consciousness has to do with our ability to reflect on our own internal states (and those of others). So it's "that thing we get through reflection" which we naturally associate with what it means to be conscious. But consciousness IS NOT reflection. It's not a representation of our brain states. It IS our brain states. But, becasue we identify or recognize it through reflection, it appears to us as if it's another kind of object that somehow emerges from the physical, but is different from it. If emergence were a physical process, then it would be describable by the efficient causes and effects assoiciated with it and the lawlike behaviors of its component parts that produce the behavior we observe. And it therefre would not be "emergent"; it would just be another cause alongside the others. And emergent cuause that produced consciousness would be a strange, new kind of cause that would surely challenge the causal completness of natural science. So, rather than seking an efficient cause explanation of consciousness, why not give an ontological explanation of consciousness that, if true, would postulate that matter has an intrinsic nature such that, in certain cases, is like something to be. In this case, we are not postulating another substance, property or relation to exist alongside other material substances. We are suggesting that the same physical objects and processes that process sensory and motor data in ways that we observe and measure by their extrinsic properties also have an intrinsic nature, such that it is like something to be the perceiving animal. What it is like to be a sentient human being is different than what it is like to be a dog, a bat or a fish in exactly the same ways that their sensory organs and neurophysiologies are different. Rocks don't have a neurophysiology, so its not likely that it is like anything to be one and, therefore, we can say they are not conscious. Finally, while it does seem impossible that grains of sand or weather patterns can be explained by their component parts, you have to remember that these are examples of complex structures that require a kind of causation that produces changes occuring across space and over time. Not surprisingly, if we don't have a good understanding what space and time are, we will also have difficulty understanding these causes. The invidious aspect of emergentism is that it is always at the ready to "explain" things that we can't seem otherwise to explain at the time. It's kind of the flip side of the "God of the gaps" concept of God being there to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the natural world when we have them and ready to move to the next gap when we come up with more information and understanding. It may well be that empirical science alone cannot explain nature sufficiently to satisfy our understanding. But, rather than seek refuge in emergent causes, supernatural beings or mystical musings, it's possible that the study of being could shed a different kind of light on the matter. Instead of a theory about "how things work", a theory about "what things are" might be able to predict and explain what appears to us in experience in a way that the particles and forces of efficient-casue explanation cannot. An even better example of an "emergent" cause is evolution, which operates over billions of years and brings about changes in the functioning of selected species that appear to be more like final causes than efficient ones. I said emergence cannot be a physical process because then it would not be emergent. We could just explain it as a physical process. But we can't seem to do that so easily for things like consciousness, evolution or even the weather forecast on the evening news. We can't explain it as a physical process so we postulate an emergent process and claim THAT explains it. But, of course, it doesn't.

The Escapist
Supreme Being (retired)

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 26, 2008
Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 227

Posted 05/06/08 - 12:59 PM:	#153
Simple Occam wrote: What it is like to be a sentient human being is different than what it is like to be a dog, a bat or a fish in exactly the same ways that their sensory organs and neurophysiologies are different. I don't think that's right. What it's like to be a human is to be in the world, to have the world around you. I'm not aware of my neurophysiology, I'm aware of the computer screen, the green walls, the pressure of the keys against my fingers, the sound of the tv in the other room. Stop and think for a minute, what is it like to be you? When a bat locates a fly using echo-location, it will be experiencing a fly, and maybe some tree branches, at any rate it will not be experiencing its own neurophysiology. When I hear a car driving past outside, I experience a car moving through a landscape I can't see.
Putting someone else's smart arsed quote into your signature does not make you any smarter. - D.K

Makarismos
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Location: Uk, Midlands
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 649

Posted 05/06/08 - 03:15 PM: Subject: The sum is greater than the parts	#154
I don’t understand how the noughts and ones ticking away on a computer chip millisecond by millisecond produce a 3D world in which I can steal a car - or rather I cannot picture the process step by step: but this doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. The only useful thing the concept of "emergent property’s" gives us, is a way of debunking thought experiments such as the Chinese room experiment, or the conscious china experiment etc. Sure, if we break it down we don’t really understand step by step how consciousness arises - but substance dualism add's nothing to our knowledge at all. Further it is doubtful that a conscious mind can understand, step by step, how a comparable mind operates. Certainly cannot be done in real time, and I doubt that the layman would be able to do it. If we admit that its difficult to picture, then show the problems with the alternatives, then for me this is almost enough. The only way this would not be enough, would be if consciousness is shown to be completely impossible in a physical system - but we always have at least our own minds to point to and say "this seems to be working quite well". If we cut part of our brain out, it certainly has an effect - much like taking some ram out of a PC. If we are embarrassed we blush - the mind and body are one, and the body is certainly physical. Even if we were to accept substance dualism for the sake of argument, then what exactly does this add to our understanding? It seems to obscure more than it reveals, leaving us with nothing but an idea which we nod to, never really being able to understand the nuts and bolts. The nuts and bolts in this case are not nuts, or bolts, simply "the spiritual" and nothing more can be known.. Nice explanation. My thoughts, that’s how it seems to me - but then what do I know eh?

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/06/08 - 09:57 PM:	#155
Makarismos wrote: What about Microsoft windows? It runs on a computer, in microchips. They are the physical component of the system, and yet it seems difficult to explain vista in terms of what is happening on a computer chip. Is this another seemingly strongly emergent property that is actually a weakly emergent property? If so, I think I agree that no system could have what you call "strongly emergent properties". Cheers As far as I can see there is only weak emergence at work here, and in every man-made machine. Every property of MS Windows, even the bugs, can be accounted for by examining the properties of the underlying physical constituents. If anyone believes there is some property of MS Windows which is strongly emergent I would be interested to know what it might be?
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/06/08 - 10:14 PM:	#156
Simple Occam wrote: [quote=Simple Occam]Emergence is different than the part-whole relationship that defines any complex structure. Would you say that water emerges or arises from H2O or that water simply IS H2O? The opposite of emergentism is reductionism. Water IS H2O because all the observable properties of water are explained by the interations that occur among its component parts. If you want to call that weak emergence I wouldn't object, as long as you mean to refer to the part-whole relationship that water and H2O have. Emergence, weak or strong, cannot be a physical process if it cannot be explained reductionistically. So if it can be explained reductionistically, it's not emergent. It seems you are using a different definition of emergence to me (and to many others). I refer you to the Wikipedia entry on emergence. The whole reason for distinguishing between weak and strong emergence is that weakly emergent properties CAN be explained reductively, whereas alleged strongly emergent properties CANNOT be explained reductively. I suggest we need to be careful of that distinction. Now, when you use the word emergent it seems to me that you are referring exclusively to strong emergence (because you claim that emergent properties cannot be explained reductively). My response to this is that, as far as I can see, the only candidates for strongly emergent phenomena in the world are those (such as consciousness) which may be epistemically strongly emergent, but I would argue are not necessarily ontologically strongly emergent. Simple Occam wrote: And if it cannot then it's not a cause in the same sense that other things are causes, thus undermining the causal completeness of physical science. This would be true only of ontologically strongly emergent properties, if any such properties exist. I dispute that any exist. Simple Occam wrote: Regarding consciousness, if it is an emergent property then it, too, undermines the casual completness of science. This would be true only if consciousness were an ontologically strongly emergent property. I argue that it is not. Simple Occam wrote: But if it's not, it's hard to understand how it could be anything real in the world. Why? I have no problem understanding how consciousness is “real in the world”. Simple Occam wrote: That's why I proposed we think about consciousness as what it is like to be a perceiving subject (ie, animal). Thus it is identical to the intrinsic nature of a sentient animal. This is not an emergent property because it is identical to the neurophysiology (brain) of the animal. You agree that consciousness is not an ontologically strongly emergent property. Excellent. The problem you now have to face is this: If consciousness is not strongly emergent, then we should be able to account for all the properties of consciousness (including the first-person subjective phenomenal properties, so-called qualia) through an account of the properties of its constituents (ie the physical substrate of the brain). Can that be done? If yes, how? If no, why not?
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

rakis
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 19, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 66

Posted 05/07/08 - 03:47 AM:	#157
reincarnated wrote: The process is not necessarily endless. We are born and we die, and the process of consciousness which emerges sometime after birth and is extinguished on death is finite, not endless. What you call "distinguished" is simply a subset of the overall dynamic processes, this particular subset characterised by the fact that it contains processes of phenomenal conscious which in one way or another correspond to or are linked to "wall". At this point don't you take consciousness as a given, as something already existing? When you talk about a subset among factual process, you describe procedures but not the emergence of consciousness reincarnated wrote: The similarities in common factors are not necessarily pre-defined. We can create any representation we wish within our consciousness by simply drawing upon the common factors which we desire - I can create a representation of a "brick wall" for example, as opposed simply to a "wall". Or a "glass wall" or a "blue wall". All my consciousness is doing is then drawing upon (linking) previous experiences of phenomenal consciousness to create a set of factors which go together to make the representation. Here you presuppose an agent with such words: we can create, we wish, we desire, I can create. So, you cannot overcome the homunculus infinite regress. You also don't describe the "how" ro "why" of consciousness, but you take it as an already given just like above

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/07/08 - 05:29 AM:	#158
rakis wrote: At this point don't you take consciousness as a given, as something already existing? When you talk about a subset among factual process, you describe procedures but not the emergence of consciousness I believe consciousness develops slowly within an infant brain. In very simple terms, as the young brain processes a multitude of phenomenal inputs and tries to place these inputs into context with one another, it gradually develops a “centre of phenomenal gravity” against which it is able to reference the various inputs and on which it can anchor those inputs. This centre of phenomenal gravity becomes the “self”, and consciousness is born. The above is my very poor attempt to describe tthe idea in a few words. Thomas Metzinger gives a much better description in his excellent paper "Being No One", published in PSYCHE 11 (5), June 2005. rakis wrote: Here you presuppose an agent with such words: we can create, we wish, we desire, I can create. So, you cannot overcome the homunculus infinite regress. There is no representation prior to the emergence of consciousness, it is the conscious self which manipulates phenomenal inputs and thereby creates these representations, and it is the conscious self which tells itself the “story” that it has wishes, desires, etc. There is no infinite regress, and there is no homunculus, because this conscious self is an emergent property of the brain as described above. rakis wrote: You also don't describe the "how" ro "why" of consciousness, but you take it as an already given just like above I have now described the “how”. I am not sure what you mean by the “why” of consciousness, could you explain? Edited by reincarnated on 05/07/08 - 07:18 AM
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/07/08 - 07:04 AM:	#159
Rakis I thought it might be useful if I here pasted an abridged version of Thomas Metzinger's account of how the "self" emerges from consciousness. What follows is largely in his own words but with some slight editing by myself. (Metzinger's paper entitled "Précis: Being No One" can be found in PSYCHE 11 (5), June 2005.) Metzinger's Phenomenal Self Model First, it is important to understand that no such things as “selves” exist in the world. For all scientific and philosophical purposes, the notion of a self – as a theoretical entity – can be safely eliminated. What we have been calling "the" self in the past is not a substance, an unchangeable essence or a thing (i.e., an "individual" in the sense of philosophical metaphysics), but a very special kind of representational content: The content of a self-model that cannot be recognized as a model by the system using it. The dynamic content of the phenomenal self-model (hereafter: ”PSM” ) is the content of the conscious self: Your current bodily sensations, your present emotional situation plus all the contents of your phenomenally experienced cognitive processing. They are constituents of your PSM. All those properties of your experiential self, to which you can now direct your attention, form the content of your current PSM. This PSM is not a thing, but an integrated process. Intuitively, and in a certain metaphorical sense, one could say that you are the content of your PSM. A perhaps better way of making the central point intuitively accessible could be by saying that we are systems that constantly confuse themselves with the content of their PSM. If an organism operates under a transparent self-model, then it possesses a phenomenal self. The phenomenal property of selfhood as such is a representational construct: an internal and dynamic representation of the organism as a whole to which the transparency constraint applies. It truly is a phenomenal property in terms of being an appearance only. The phenomenal experience of substantiality (i.e., of being an independent entity that could in principle exist all by itself), of having an essence (i.e., of being defined by possessing an unchangeable innermost core, an invariant set of intrinsic properties) and of individuality (i.e., of being an entity that is unique and indivisible) are special forms of conscious, representational content as well. Possessing this content on the level of phenomenal experience was evolutionary advantageous, but as such (i.e., as phenomenal content) it is not epistemically justified. This position is clearly counter-intuitive: For human beings, during the ongoing process of conscious experience characterizing their waking and dreaming life, a self is present. Human beings consciously experience themselves as being someone. Transparency Transparency (as discussed by Metzinger) is a phenomenological concept (and not an epistemological one) which, however, implies a lack of knowledge. Transparency is a special form of darkness. In particular, phenomenal transparency means that something particular is not accessible for subjective experience, namely the representational nature of the contents of conscious experience. What makes a phenomenal representation transparent is the attentional unavailability of earlier processing stages in the brain for introspection. The instruments of representation themselves cannot be represented as such, and hence the system making the experience, on this level and by conceptual necessity, is entangled in a naïve realism: In standard configurations, one's phenomenal experience has an untranscendably realistic character. Naïve realism can also be accommodated on the epistemological level by introducing the concept of "autoepistemic closure". It is an epistemological, and not (at least not primarily) a phenomenological concept. It refers to an ”inbuilt blind spot”, a structurally anchored deficit in the capacity to gain knowledge about oneself. Metzinger’s claim is that the transparency-constraint is the decisive defining characteristic: If all other necessary/sufficient constraints for the emergence of phenomenal experience are satisfied by a given representational system, the addition of a transparent self-model will by necessity lead to the emergence of a phenomenal self. The transparency of the self-model is a special form of inner darkness. It consists in the fact that the representational character of the contents of self-consciousness is not accessible to subjective experience. The phenomenology of transparent self-modeling is the phenomenology of selfhood. It is the phenomenology of a system caught in a naive-realistic self-misunderstanding. A selfless system can certainly misunderstand itself, for instance by misinterpreting phenomenal experience in terms of implying the actual existence of a self. Phenomenal selfhood results from auto-epistemic closure in a self-representing system; it is a function realized by a lack of information. We do not experience the contents of our self-consciousness as the contents of a representational process, but simply as ourselves, living in the world right now. Edited by reincarnated on 05/07/08 - 07:14 AM
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

Simple Occam
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 14, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 512

Posted 05/07/08 - 01:46 PM:	#160
reincarnated wrote: Now, when you use the word emergent it seems to me that you are referring exclusively to strong emergence (because you claim that emergent properties cannot be explained reductively). My response to this is that, as far as I can see, the only candidates for strongly emergent phenomena in the world are those (such as consciousness) which may be epistemically strongly emergent, but I would argue are not necessarily ontologically strongly emergent. AND Simple Occam wrote: And if it cannot then it's not a cause in the same sense that other things are causes, thus undermining the causal completeness of physical science. Reincarnated: This would be true only of ontologically strongly emergent properties, if any such properties exist. I dispute that any exist. I'm a bit lost here when you say consciousness may be epistemically strongly emergent, but not necessarily ontologically strongly emergent. I get even more confused when you go on to say that ontologically strongly emergent properties do not exist and that you have arguments to support that position. Emergence is an ontological claim, so I'm not sure what epistemological emergence is anyway. Perhaps you can explain. I am using emergence to mean strong emergence; the opposite of reductionism. Weak emergence is not emergence at all, imho, as long as the ways in which the component parts combine cause the behavior of the whole. Nature consists of levels of organization of the elementary particles in space: sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms and societies. Each level represents a complex structure which normally interacts with its environment as a whole but can be fully explained as the combination of its parts. In this way, the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts, considered separately. But the whole is still fully reducible to the parts and how they are organized. There is no emergent entity or property that is not reducible. For science to be causally complete we must be able to how the laws of chemistry dervive from the laws of physics, how organic chemistry derives from inorganic, how biology evolves into successively more complex and powerful structures and how societies derive their structures from the composition of their individual members. If we can't achieve this, then science is not a causally complete explanation of the world. It is, at best, a tool of limited usefulness in figuring out how some things work. Simple Occam wrote: Regarding consciousness, if it is an emergent property then it, too, undermines the casual completness of science. reincarnated: This would be true only if consciousness were an ontologically strongly emergent property. I argue that it is not. Again, weak emergence is not emergence at all. A puddle of water might be thought of as "weakly emergent" from a collection of H2O molecules. Or the completion of my project might be weakly emergent from the various tasks that go into it. But this is just reductionism with a 'weak emergence' as a weasel word. When you complete all the tasks involved in rounding off the edges of a jagged stone, it will roll. But you can't argue that consciousness is weakly emergent from neurophysiology either. It not dervive from the organization of the component parts (like water from H2O). The reason you know that consciousness is a part of the world is because you ARE conscious and you are part of the world. But HOW is it a part, when the "thing" you seem to know througgh reflection does not reduce to its component parts. We can understand how the sensory organs and brain processs sensory data. But in all that processing we never "find" consciousness. This is the problem involved in explaining consciousness. Or, as you put it, The problem you now have to face is this: If consciousness is not strongly emergent, then we should be able to account for all the properties of consciousness (including the first-person subjective phenomenal properties, so-called qualia) through an account of the properties of its constituents (ie the physical substrate of the brain). Can that be done? If yes, how? If no, why not? So, no. We cannot account for the qualia, the subjective phenomenal properties of consciousness, by explaining the extrinsic properties of brain physiology. Rather, we have to posit or assume that the brain (and all matter) has intrinsic properties, too. These intrinsic properties define what the thing is in itself, apart from other things and how it interacts causally with them. To explain consciousness we hypothesize that the intrinsic nature of the brain is that it is like something to be it (ie to be the animal that has this brain as a part of it). Exaclty WHAT it is like to be a brain sensing blue IS what we mean by "having blue qualia". The Escapist, above, seems to think that I'm claiming we are "aware of our neurophysiology" in consciousness. This is not my claim at all. Rather, I'd say we ARE (in part) our neurophysiology, that it's intrinsic nature is my consciousness and it's extrinsic nature is how my brain and nervous system can be measured and predicted by brain physiologists. Mind and brain are identical in that they refer to 2 aspects of the same material thing: 1)my brain as it might be examined and measured from outside, by the way it interacts with eg, reflected light, X-rays, magnetic fields, EEG's, CAT scans, etc. and 2) what it is like to be the person having my brain. In this way we can distinguish the 2 without claining they are 2 different things. It's important to note at this point that by locating the qualia within the subject, we are reasoning beyond the common sense assumption that the qualities of the objects we perceive are parts of the objects themselves, which we somehow intuit in percpetion. To overcome this assumption (intellectually) is to reject the theory of naive or direct realism and replace it with a theory of critical or representative realism. Having put them "in" the subject, it is natural to assume the the 'self' that is immediately aware of these phenomenal properties is the same 'self' that guides our behavior and which we identify as "I" or "me". But this is the illusion that creates the modern problem of mind.

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/07/08 - 06:49 PM:	#161
Simple Occam wrote: I'm a bit lost here when you say consciousness may be epistemically strongly emergent, but not necessarily ontologically strongly emergent. I get even more confused when you go on to say that ontologically strongly emergent properties do not exist and that you have arguments to support that position. Emergence is an ontological claim, so I'm not sure what epistemological emergence is anyway. Perhaps you can explain. We seem to agree that strong emergence means "not reducible", in the sense of a reductive explanation. If we are unable to give an account of some emergent property X of a system Z through an account of the properties of the constituent parts which go to make up the system Z, then we say that X is strongly emergent. With this I believe you will agree (based on our dialogue thus far). But the entire language in such an explication of strongly emergent properties is epistemic rather than ontic - we talk of things like "reductive explanation" and "give an account". If we cannot provide a reductive explanation, and we cannot give an account, of the emergent property X, this may simply be a limitation of our epistemic stance - we may be able to conclude that property X is epistemically strongly emergent (ie does not permit of reductive explanation, which is an epistemic property), but it does not necessarily follow that the property X is also ontically strongly emergent (ie property X does not in fact supervene on the properties of the constituents of Z). In other words, just because we cannot explain how the sum of the parts cause the property of the whole, it does not follow that the sum of the parts does not in fact cause the property of the whole. In other words, what I am trying to say is that absence of evidence (ie our epistemic inability to provide a reductive explanation of supervenience) is not the same as evidence of absence (ie that there is ontic absence of supervenience). In other words, it is not always safe to make ontic conclusions ("how the world really is") based on the limitations of our epistemic premises ("how the world appears to be"). Simple Occam wrote: Weak emergence is not emergence at all, imho, as long as the ways in which the component parts combine cause the behavior of the whole. Nature consists of levels of organization of the elementary particles in space: sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms and societies. Each level represents a complex structure which normally interacts with its environment as a whole but can be fully explained as the combination of its parts. In this way, the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts, considered separately. But the whole is still fully reducible to the parts and how they are organized. There is no emergent entity or property that is not reducible. Based on my above explanation, please note how you are mixing epistemic (reducible, explained) and ontic (consists of, cause, interacts) terms in the above. We must be careful when making arguments of emergence that we do not infer ontic properties from epistemic properties. Simple Occam wrote: For science to be causally complete we must be able to explain how the laws of chemistry dervive from the laws of physics, how organic chemistry derives from inorganic, how biology evolves into successively more complex and powerful structures and how societies derive their structures from the composition of their individual members. Again, this mixes epistemic and ontic perspectives. Even if the world is causally complete, it does NOT follow from this that we can provide a full explication of that causal completeness - some things (such as the emergence of phenomenal consciousness) may be weakly emergent in the ontic sense, but that does not mean that we can necessarily provide an explication of that emergence (ie the epistemic sense). Simple Occam wrote: If we can't achieve this, then science is not a causally complete explanation of the world. It is, at best, a tool of limited usefulness in figuring out how some things work. I agree with your conclusion that science is not a causally complete explanation of the world - but this an epistemic statement. Just because science cannot provide a causally complete explanation, it does not follow that the world is not causally complete. This simply shows the limitations of the scientific method, based as it is on 3rd person objective explanations. Simple Occam wrote: We cannot account for the qualia, the subjective phenomenal properties of consciousness, by explaining the extrinsic properties of brain physiology. Rather, we have to posit or assume that the brain (and all matter) has intrinsic properties, too. These intrinsic properties define what the thing is in itself, apart from other things and how it interacts causally with them. To explain consciousness we hypothesize that the intrinsic nature of the brain is that it is like something to be it (ie to be the animal that has this brain as a part of it). Exaclty WHAT it is like to be a brain sensing blue IS what we mean by "having blue qualia". The Escapist, above, seems to think that I'm claiming we are "aware of our neurophysiology" in consciousness. This is not my claim at all. Rather, I'd say we ARE (in part) our neurophysiology, that it's intrinsic nature is my consciousness and it's extrinsic nature is how my brain and nervous system can be measured and predicted by brain physiologists. Mind and brain are identical in that they refer to 2 aspects of the same material thing: 1)my brain as it might be examined and measured from outside, by the way it interacts with eg, reflected light, X-rays, magnetic fields, EEG's, CAT scans, etc. and 2) what it is like to be the person having my brain. In this way we can distinguish the 2 without claining they are 2 different things. This seems to be quite close to my intuition, except that I express it in a different way. It seems to me that there are two aspects to phenomenal consciousness – the 1^st person subjective aspect (what it is like to be that consciousness), and the 3^rd person objective aspect (the conscious person as seen from the outside). The problem with the scientific method is that ONLY the 3^rd person objective aspect is accessible to science (science can explain only the parts of the world which we can study objectively) – the 1^st person subjective aspect is off-limits to science. There is no way that agent A can know exactly what agent B’s conscious experience is like, because “being agent B” is part and parcel of the conscious experience of agent B. There is no way that agent A can “be” agent B, there is no way that agent A can get inside agent B’s head without changing agent B, hence it is impossible in principle to get an accurate perspective on someone else’s consciousness which is identical with their own perspective (ie the scientific method fails). Another way of saying this is that it is impossible to get an accurate 3^rd person perspective understanding of a 1^st person subjective state. This does NOT mean that consciousness is non-physical, neither does it mean that phenomenal consciousness does not supervene on the physical – in other words it does not mean that consciousness is ontically strongly emergent. It just means that there is no way that we can explain or give an account of phenomenal consciousness from an objective perspective (ie a scientific explanation), because such an objective perspective of phenomenal consciousness is impossible in principle – in other words it might appear (epistemically and naively) that phenomenal consciousness might be strongly emergent, simply because we are unable to explain how it emerges. Thus ontically everything may be reducible, but it does not follow from this that epistemically all things are reducible. This gives rise to a form of epistemic dualism, but a dualism which is emergent and supervenient on the physical, hence we preserve ontological monism. Edited by reincarnated on 05/07/08 - 10:18 PM
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/07/08 - 07:45 PM:	#162
For Rakis and anyone else who is interested, a pdf version of Metzinger's precis paper on "Being No One" is now available at http://www.moving-finger.com/papers/bno.pdf
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

Makarismos
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Location: Uk, Midlands
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 649

Posted 05/08/08 - 10:48 AM:	#163
reincarnated wrote: This gives rise to a form of epistemic dualism, but a dualism which is emergent and supervenient on the physical, hence we preserve ontological monism. But at the sake of science. There was a time when I would have cried foul, but to be honest I think what you say makes allot of sense. I guess your conclusion will make those who think that science has all of the answers a bit more modest - and what about psychology? as a science that studies the individual consciousness, surely your line of thinking would make this absurd?

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/08/08 - 09:31 PM:	#164
Makarismos wrote: But at the sake of science. There was a time when I would have cried foul, but to be honest I think what you say makes allot of sense. I have spent most of my life as a scientist, so I respect the scientific method. But I also recognise the limitations of science. The basic thesis of the scientific method is based on 3rd person objective verification. And this works for almost everything we need to explain in the world - except for phenomenal consciousness. Chalmers et al would argue we need a "whole new science" to explain phenomenal consciousness; Dennett et al would argue either that nothing needs to be explained, or that we can explain it already (he seems to vascillate). I disagree with both Chalmers and Dennett, because they both fail to appreciate the impossibility of providing an objective account of a purely subjective phenomenon. Makarismos wrote: I guess your conclusion will make those who think that science has all of the answers a bit more modest - and what about psychology? as a science that studies the individual consciousness, surely your line of thinking would make this absurd? Well, insofar as psychology is the scientific study of mental processes and behaviour, its not absurd. But psychology faces the same limitations as the scientific method upon which it is based. We can explain the 3rd person objective properties of consciousness, we can explain conscious behaviour based on this perspective, but we cannot explain the phenomenal aspects of consciousness.
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/08/08 - 11:32 PM: Subject: Imagination vs Understanding	#165
Makarismos wrote: You are now left with the rather laughable proposition of being able to imagine consciousness arising, while claiming that understanding it is impossible. What is it exactly that you imagine? Do Billiard balls turn in to a giant brain in these fevered imaginings? Or do you simply not understand what you are imagining enough to explain what it is you see? Please, do tell. Makarismos Whilst reading Chalmers' account of philsophical zombies, it occurred to me that here is another example of being able to imagine something without being able to understand the same thing (where by understand we mean to be able to provide a reductive explanation). A zombie — in the philosophers’ rather than the Hollywood sense of the term — is a being that is physically (and hence also functionally) exactly like an ordinary human being, but which has no conscious experiences. Chalmers, along I suspect with most people, would claim that he has no problem imagining such a being, to Chalmers a philosphical zombie is "conceivable". But when we come to try and understand exactly what this entails, and we try to explain how such a philsophical zombie could possibly exist - then we face a tremendous problem. This is the basis of the so-called "hard problem" in understanding consciousness.
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

Makarismos
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Location: Uk, Midlands
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 649

Posted 05/09/08 - 10:18 AM: Subject: Hard like a Billiard ball	#166
reincarnated wrote: Makarismos Whilst reading Chalmers' account of philsophical zombies, it occurred to me that here is another example of being able to imagine something without being able to understand the same thing (where by understand we mean to be able to provide a reductive explanation). A zombie — in the philosophers’ rather than the Hollywood sense of the term — is a being that is physically (and hence also functionally) exactly like an ordinary human being, but which has no conscious experiences. Chalmers, along I suspect with most people, would claim that he has no problem imagining such a being, to Chalmers a philosphical zombie is "conceivable". But when we come to try and understand exactly what this entails, and we try to explain how such a philsophical zombie could possibly exist - then we face a tremendous problem. This is the basis of the so-called "hard problem" in understanding consciousness. You right about it being a hard problem. I think that we might all of us - including Chalmers - be deluding ourselves a little. This 'hard problem' is well named, and is the reason why I doubt that thought experiments like zombie possibility really serve much of a purpose when discussing consciousness. Sure, its a good way of introducing scepticism to someone new to philosophy, but what can such 'imaginings' actually tell us about consciousness? We can talk vividly with such illustrations of how it is inconceivable that consciousness could arise out of inert matter, and yet here we are: if consciousness exists at all then we are all examples. Since we both agree that it is impossible to understand how consciousness arises, and we both believe that it does arise, you would probably agree with me that such illustrations are somewhat misleading when used to show that consciousness could not arise from matter? Cartesians would no doubt want to use such models to clearly demonstrate the impossibility of consciousness arising from inert matter, yet to me they don’t achieve this - precisely because of the lack of understanding. I would suggest that we stick to models which we understand, and avoid using a lack of understanding as proof of something’s non/existence. I believe my original point was that 'imagining' something without being able to picture the details (to understand) is horribly misleading. I actually wonder what it is you are doing when performing such a task: doesn’t it simply involve mouthing the words someone else has said, nodding your head, and saying "ahh I see"? It doesn’t involve 'understanding', it is more a process of forming a mental picture. When we imagine a zombie, we might imagine a person with a cutaway (like a technical schematic) showing that they are merely empty inside. The mental picture might be more abstract, and merely involve the concept of 'a lack of consciousness' and 'a person' added together to form 'a zombie': all this adding of concepts doesn’t seem to mean we have something that could really exist, something solid and meaningful. Further inspection shows us how difficult this is to 'understand', and so perhaps upon further inspection, the whole 'imagining' should be disregarded.

Simple Occam
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 14, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 512

Posted 05/09/08 - 11:29 AM:	#167
reincarnated wrote: It seems to me that there are two aspects to phenomenal consciousness – the 1st person subjective aspect (what it is like to be that consciousness), and the 3rd person objective aspect (the conscious person as seen from the outside). The problem with the scientific method is that ONLY the 3rd person objective aspect is accessible to science (science can explain only the parts of the world which we can study objectively) – the 1st person subjective aspect is off-limits to science. What you are calling "the 3rd person objective aspect", I refer to as our empirical knowledge of the extrinsic properties of things in the material world. This includes what we know about the "how" of consciousness from neurophysiology, optics, acoustics, etc. which derive from physics, chemistry, biology, etc. The "1st person subjective aspect" is simply the intrinsic nature of... or what it is like to be... the animal with a brain. The belief that the brain has such an intrinsic nature is not a scientific hypothesis because it does not have to do with the efficient causation of how the process works. Rather, it is an ontological hypothesis which purports to offer the best explanation of the nature of consciousness. It explains consciousness not as a strange kind of private knowledge but as a condition of being, associated with an animal with the appropriate neurophysiology. Thus it is an ontological hypothesis, not a scientific one. However, it is still an empirical hypothesis, since it explains what appears to us in experience and posits the existence of nothing other than the substances that science can describe completely from it's "3rd person perspective", explaining how their extrinsic properties are related. Understood as the intrinsic nature of this highly evolved material structure, consciousness is nothing more than the brain. But when we try to explain consciousness using nothing other than reflection on our internal states, we inevitably make the mistake of regarding it as a special kind of knowing and agency, whereby the "I" that knows my experience is also the "I" that guides my behavior in response to it. On the theory I recommend, the guidance of human behavior follows from perception, desire, instinct and reason. Consciousness is distinct from all of this because it's not about knowing or acting. It is simply the intrinsic nature of our neurophysiology.

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/09/08 - 11:11 PM:	#168
Makarismos wrote: I think that we might all of us - including Chalmers - be deluding ourselves a little. This 'hard problem' is well named, and is the reason why I doubt that thought experiments like zombie possibility really serve much of a purpose when discussing consciousness. Sure, its a good way of introducing scepticism to someone new to philosophy, but what can such 'imaginings' actually tell us about consciousness? We can talk vividly with such illustrations of how it is inconceivable that consciousness could arise out of inert matter, and yet here we are: if consciousness exists at all then we are all examples. Since we both agree that it is impossible to understand how consciousness arises, and we both believe that it does arise, you would probably agree with me that such illustrations are somewhat misleading when used to show that consciousness could not arise from matter? Cartesians would no doubt want to use such models to clearly demonstrate the impossibility of consciousness arising from inert matter, yet to me they don’t achieve this - precisely because of the lack of understanding. The zombie argument (as used by Chalmers & others) is an attempt to show not that phenomenal consciousness is impossible, but that it it is unnecessary or superfluous. If (so the argument goes) a philosophical zombie is conceivable, then what benefit accrues from the possession of phenomenal consciousness? Why does phenomenal consciousness arise in humans, if a being exactly like a human, but devoid of all phenomenal consciousness, is a possibility? Why aren't we all zombies? Makarismos wrote: I believe my original point was that 'imagining' something without being able to picture the details (to understand) is horribly misleading. I would not disagree that imagination in absence of understanding can be misleadng. If we believe we can imagine something (like a zombie), but without understanding the details, we can definitely lead ourselves up the garden path (as imho zombiephiles do). But with respect, this was not your original point. You claimed that being able to imagine something without understanding the same thing is "laughable". Now it seems you are saying that such a position is not "laughable", but could simply be misleading. I agree with the latter. Makarismos wrote: When we imagine a zombie, we might imagine a person with a cutaway (like a technical schematic) showing that they are merely empty inside. The mental picture might be more abstract, and merely involve the concept of 'a lack of consciousness' and 'a person' added together to form 'a zombie': all this adding of concepts doesn’t seem to mean we have something that could really exist, something solid and meaningful. Further inspection shows us how difficult this is to 'understand', and so perhaps upon further inspection, the whole 'imagining' should be disregarded. I tend to agree, up to a point. Imagination without understanding does have limited value. BUT (and here is the but), if we do NOT understand, then imagination can then be a useful aid in developing such understanding. Whilst I agree that we must be careful not to let our imagination take us off on wild goose chases, at the same time I do not agree that imagination serves no useful purpose at all. Deleuze and Guattari observe in their 1994 book "What is Philosophy", that like the arts & science, philosophy is a constructive, creative endeavour. However, not all creation is philosophical. Instead, unlike the arts and sciences, “Philosophy is the discipline that involves creating concepts” and “only philosophy creates concepts”. It seems to me that imagination plays an important role, as long as it is used wisely, in the creation of such concepts.
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/09/08 - 11:41 PM:	#169
Simple Occam wrote: What you are calling "the 3rd person objective aspect", I refer to as our empirical knowledge of the extrinsic properties of things in the material world. This includes what we know about the "how" of consciousness from neurophysiology, optics, acoustics, etc. which derive from physics, chemistry, biology, etc. The "1st person subjective aspect" is simply the intrinsic nature of... or what it is like to be... the animal with a brain. The belief that the brain has such an intrinsic nature is not a scientific hypothesis because it does not have to do with the efficient causation of how the process works. Rather, it is an ontological hypothesis which purports to offer the best explanation of the nature of consciousness.It explains consciousness not as a strange kind of private knowledge but as a condition of being, associated with an animal with the appropriate neurophysiology. Thus it is an ontological hypothesis, not a scientific one. However, it is still an empirical hypothesis, since it explains what appears to us in experience and posits the existence of nothing other than the substances that science can describe completely from it's "3rd person perspective", explaining how their extrinsic properties are related. Understood as the intrinsic nature of this highly evolved material structure, consciousness is nothing more than the brain. But when we try to explain consciousness using nothing other than reflection on our internal states, we inevitably make the mistake of regarding it as a special kind of knowing and agency, whereby the "I" that knows my experience is also the "I" that guides my behavior in response to it. On the theory I recommend, the guidance of human behavior follows from perception, desire, instinct and reason. Consciousness is distinct from all of this because it's not about knowing or acting. It is simply the intrinsic nature of our neurophysiology. "The belief that the brain has such an intrinsic nature" (as you point out mid-way through your post) is a purely empirical conclusion. But in this case it is empiricism based on 1st person subjective experience, unverifiable by science because it is unverifiable from a 3rd person objective perspective. The only reason (imho) that you believe the brain has an intrinsic nature of phenomenal consciousness is precisely because you possess such a brain with phenomenal consciousness. Apart from that, and the verbal reports from other humans that they also possess such brains, you have absolutely no evidence of either the existence of, or the properties of, phenomenal consciousness. But where is the "explanation" you refer to? Just because we believe, based on subjective empiricism, that human brains give rise to phenomenal consciousness, it does not follow that we have explained anything. We have simply made an observation. Take the zombie argument, for example. If philosophical zombies are conceivable, why are we not all zombies? why does phenomenal consciousness arise? If, as you claim, you have an explanation for consciousness, then you should also be able to explain this.
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

rakis
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 19, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 66

Posted 05/10/08 - 01:47 PM:	#170
reincarnated wrote: I believe consciousness develops slowly within an infant brain. In very simple terms, as the young brain processes a multitude of phenomenal inputs and tries to place these inputs into context with one another, it gradually develops a “centre of phenomenal gravity” against which it is able to reference the various inputs and on which it can anchor those inputs. This centre of phenomenal gravity becomes the “self”, and consciousness is born. The input idea reminds me the Aristotelian or Platonic metaphor of the wax. An input needs an empty vessel that must already be predetermined or preconstructed to hold the input? And who made that input ? I don't see how an input approach can overcome an infinite regress. There are also other several problems such as: 1.If the causal relationship exists, then the representation exists; if the causal relationship does not exist, then the representation does not exist. These are the only two possibilities, and this leaves no way in which the case of “a representation exists but is false about what it is representing” can be modeled. There are only two possibilities in the modeling resources, but three distinction representation conditions must be modeled: exists and is correct, exists and is incorrect, and does not exist. 2. Within the strictly factual realm of the causal relationship, there are myriads of causal relationships throughout the universe — every instance of causally paired events — and almost none of them is representational. What is special about those that allegedly are representational? 3. Causality is transitive, so if the causal relationship exists with the input, it also exists with the quantum activities in the input, with the "materials" out of which the input is constructed, with the processes that constructed those "materials", and so on. For exampe,in the case of vision, relationships with the light similarly proliferate. Which of these is to be the crucial representational relationship? And how does the perceiver “know” what that special relationship is (supposed to be) with? Note that this last question is the representational question all over again: the entire account contains a circularity at its core. reincarnated wrote: There is no representation prior to the emergence of consciousness, it is the conscious self which manipulates phenomenal inputs and thereby creates these representations, and it is the conscious self which tells itself the “story” that it has wishes, desires, etc. There is no infinite regress, and there is no homunculus, because this conscious self is an emergent property of the brain as described above. Even if is an input or a conscious self I can't see how a homunculus critique is vanished

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/10/08 - 06:00 PM:	#171
rakis wrote: The input idea reminds me the Aristotelian or Platonic metaphor of the wax. An input needs an empty vessel that must already be predetermined or preconstructed to hold the input? And who made that input ? I don't see how an input approach can overcome an infinite regress. Whereas I see no problem at all. Is the shape and design of the leaf on a tree pre-determined? In a very real sense yes it is (if one believes in hard determinism like I do) - but it does not follow from this that "somebody made" that design. The physicalist thesis is that everything, including all "design", supervenes on the physical. The design of the leaf on a tre is a weakly emergent property, which is determined by a whole host of factors including the environment and the genetic makeup of the tree. And so it is with consciousness. rakis wrote: There are also other several problems such as: 1.If the causal relationship exists, then the representation exists; if the causal relationship does not exist, then the representation does not exist. These are the only two possibilities, and this leaves no way in which the case of “a representation exists but is false about what it is representing” can be modeled. There are only two possibilities in the modeling resources, but three distinction representation conditions must be modeled: exists and is correct, exists and is incorrect, and does not exist. Looked at from the 4D "Block Universe" perspective of spacetime then yes it is true that in a deterministic universe everything simpy "exists". But in relation to the time-axis we say that at some point in time some things (present events) exist and some other things (past and future events) do not. rakis wrote: 2. Within the strictly factual realm of the causal relationship, there are myriads of causal relationships throughout the universe �" every instance of causally paired events �" and almost none of them is representational. What is special about those that allegedly are representational? What is special about a mental representation? A "mental representation" is a theoretical construct of cognitive science - we use the term to refer to the cognitive states and processes which are constituted by the occurrence, transformation and storage (in the mind/brain) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another. That's it. rakis wrote: 3. Causality is transitive, so if the causal relationship exists with the input, it also exists with the quantum activities in the input, with the "materials" out of which the input is constructed, with the processes that constructed those "materials", and so on. For exampe,in the case of vision, relationships with the light similarly proliferate. Which of these is to be the crucial representational relationship? And how does the perceiver “know” what that special relationship is (supposed to be) with? Note that this last question is the representational question all over again: the entire account contains a circularity at its core. In the deterministic Block Universe view, nothing "causes" anything else, everything simply exists in a self-consistent 4D sense, and what we humans call causality is simply the name that we give to an observed regularity in that 4D pattern. And as I said above, a mental representation refers simply to the particular regularities which we term cognitive states and processes ,which in turn are constituted by the occurrence, transformation and storage (in the mind/brain) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another. I see no circularity here?
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

WW_III_ANGRY
All knowing prick

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 06, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 72

Posted 05/11/08 - 06:32 AM:	#172
Our bodies and minds may be the natural products of the environment, just because it is drastically different from the raw form of every element within us, doesn't mean one thing or another at this point until we know what it means or how it formed. But, the consciousness to me is matter. It is the firing of synapses, neurons, communicating, just on a more complex manner than the rain soaking into the earth and getting soaked up by roots and such. It is a process of communication amongst the elements that occurs naturally. This is true in all things in physics. Sure we made a computer that simulates a brain in some ways.. its just that the computer motherboard is much more raw than our own minds, element wise.

Simple Occam
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 14, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 512

Posted 05/12/08 - 07:30 AM:	#173
reincarnated wrote: The only reason (imho) that you believe the brain has an intrinsic nature of phenomenal consciousness is precisely because you possess such a brain with phenomenal consciousness. Apart from that, and the verbal reports from other humans that they also possess such brains, you have absolutely no evidence of either the existence of, or the properties of, phenomenal consciousness That's only part of the reason, but, yes, the fact that I have phenomenal consciousness means that something appears to me that I can understand in various ways. You have it, too. Even your "humble opinion" tells you that I have such a brain and that my having of it is a reason for me to think that it it has an intrinsic. The problem of mind, it's true, does not arise for the mindless. But you act like this is somehow a defecit of my position. But you are right, apart from the undeniable presence of consciousness and the reports of all other language-users that they, too, are presented with phenomenal consciousness, I have absolutely no reason to believe phenomenal consciousness exists. Then you suggest that these reports and the consciousness itself are dubious because they cannot be validated by science, which, of course, we stipulated from the outset. Consciousness evolved in many animals on earth, including us. Zombies were not among them. All I'm saying is that these things that evolved have an intrinsic nature, as does everything that exists. What's different about us conscious animals it that our intrinsic nature is like something. It's a hypothesis that... IF IT WERE TRUE... would explain what consciousness is and why it appears to be something else... like a "mental substance".

reincarnated
should have known better

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Location: Dubai
Total Topics: 10
Total Posts: 439

Posted 05/12/08 - 07:54 AM:	#174
Simple Occam wrote: Consciousness evolved in many animals on earth, including us. Zombies were not among them. All I'm saying is that these things that evolved have an intrinsic nature, as does everything that exists. What's different about us conscious animals it that our intrinsic nature is like something. It's a hypothesis that... IF IT WERE TRUE... would explain what consciousness is and why it appears to be something else... like a "mental substance". Sorry, but I am struggling to see how the suggestion that "humans have an intrinsic nature to be conscious" explains anything at all about consciousness. Its like saying bumble bees have an intrinsic nature to buzz.
�If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

Simple Occam
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 14, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 512

Posted 05/12/08 - 11:01 AM:	#175
Not only humans. but all animals with the apporpriate neurophysiology are conscious. Bees have an instinct to buzz. It's a behavior generated by the geneticallly hard-wired neurophysiology of a bee. Consciousness is a state of being, not a kind of knowing, an instinct or a behavior. While it may be like something to be a bee, it's doubtful that it's much like what it is to be a dog, for instance, because the hawrdware is so different. Still, bees have eyes and bee brains represent visual, as well as other sensory data. Exactly WHAT it is like to be a bee or a bat would, on this theory, vary as the neurophysiology varies. Of course, unless one were a talking bee, we wouldn't get the kind of reports about the quality of the perceptual experience that we might get with another human. But, even in that case, the only way to experience the consciousness of another is to BE the other...which, of course we can't. You don't seriously doubt the existence of other minds, do you?

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.