I was expecting a philosophical not a biological answer (eg a definition of what memory means to some philosophers). — GrahamJ

I touched on this issue in another thread. In philosophy, the accepted belief is the causal theory of perception -- which means the CNS, and which means they accept the duality of existence and consciousness: the physical brain and the mind that perceives of time. Without the temporal perception, we would be like the enteric nervous system -- able to perform a function, but without self-awareness, no time perception, no self.

I knew about the enteric nervous system (though I'd forgotten the name). If it records some information, and later uses that information to make a decision, I would call that memory, or even a 'mental record'. — GrahamJ

No, that's not correct. The ENS could function without the input from the CNS. It doesn't record information, as we know information. It's not through memory. I don't know how to explain it.

It means retrieving the information from memory. Mind you, bodily functions such as hunger is not memory based, nor the bowel movement ( I will explain it for those uninitiated, upon request). — L'éléphant
Yes please. — GrahamJ

The bowel movement is controlled by the enteric nervous system. They call it the second brain -- without input from our self-awareness (the central nervous system), the ENS can function fully on its own. No, it can't write a Shakespeare masterpiece or Vivaldi's Four Seasons, but it's a powerful network of guts and enzymes and bacteria.

He's not advancing a wild argument that is indefensible but more like he grew up knowing one thing and seeing another needs to adjust. Spending 70 years of your life knowing one thing and then having to change course is hard but he's not making any wild claims. — Darkneos

I agree. Nonetheless, those narrow-minded people, like you said, would make it like he was advancing an argument.

Two women replied, calling me misogynistic and demeaning, and referring to me as "puffing on a corncob pipe through withered lips" and avoiding the civil and women's rights movements in the 1960s. To which I replied I was on campus and had demonstrated against George Wallace as he stood in the doorway to the admissions office at the U of Alabama, denying entrance to a black man, and that, actually, I had joined the women's lib movement during that decade. — jgill

Corncob pipe?



What did they expect you to smoke? A smoking dragon?

Just remember, no good deed goes unpunished. Your age included. They were calling you misogynistic and demeaning without knowing you fully well. Did you show them your curriculum vitae? I would keep it with me just in case -- list the campus incident with George Wallace demonstration and the date it happened.

There is no irrefragable piece of knowledge that founds any thought system - not even the cogito. If this approach involves an act of performative self-refutation, or engenders a regress problem, that only seems to further suggest the inability to obtain a foundational justification. Thoughts? — Tom Storm

Oh, I responded incorrectly, Tom. I meant to say, that foundationalism is itself a theory, a school of thought, if you will, which has a logical system of statements pointing towards their view. But to answer your question, yes, the postmodern tried to do away with the foundationalist notion of grounds. I actually disagree with them since they, too, were trying to ground their assumptions on some structure of society/government.

I would have to dig for their writings if you want to discuss this further.

Is there a difference for you between presuppositions and foundationalism? — Tom Storm

If you mean if foundationalism as a theory is on the same level of argument as presuppositions (statements expressing premises), no.

I actually overheard two people talking about same-sex marriage. One was a senior associate about 70 years of age, man, the other one was about 60 years old woman. He was trying to explain to the woman how he felt about same-sex marriage as he grew up in the conventional family and married conventionally, so his feelings and views about same-sex marriage were somewhat uncomfortable and same sex marrying each other is new to him. Mind you that he never said anything else but what he felt or what background he's coming from. As soon as the man walked away, the woman called him a bigot and homophobic.

So, those who aren't used to a lifestyle couldn't even express their own feelings without being called a bigot and homophobic. The woman, btw, is active on social media and she gets all her "own" opinions from her social media friends. They don't have tolerance towards feelings that express a different attitude.

I'm sure the man needed some adjustment to his new environment -- I'd give him some time. But I wouldn't call him homophobic or bigot. (I know how he is professionally).

Just an example of motte-and-bailey true-to-life experience.

So, the woman's calling the other a bigot and homophobic represents the motte, and the man's expression of his discomfort about same sex marriage represents the bailey.

But to have an organized anti-system is to have a system, right? — Tom Storm

Yes.

Which is why I usually say I hold that human thought is paradoxical and that much of what we call reality is human projection based on our limited perspective. From this 'dimly lit' vantage point I generally hold that I (or any of us) don't have enough information or wisdom to make reliable judgements about the nature of reality. — Tom Storm

This would be a fair response against foundationalism -- but it also means that it hasn't undermined foundationalism.

If you disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem, then what would you say the article is about? — Luke

A rehash of what's already been written about phenomenal experience in philosophy, except with fancy words and invention or creative license, which unfortunately is unwarranted since he was actually talking about biological and physiological activities. We have scientific records, no need to invent things.

Here again are passages lifted from the article -- passages are in quote marks: (I suppose I have to work harder because I'm in the minority of disagreeing with his "solution")

Let’s imagine, however, that as the animal’s life becomes more complex, it reaches a stage where it would benefit from retaining some kind of ‘mental record’ of what’s affecting it: a representation of the stimulus that can serve as a basis for planning and decision-making.

A mental record, in other words, a temporal perception, which has already been written about a thousand times by the likes of Descartes, Hume, A. Shimony, etc.

I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia.

What are these attractors? He explains it in this passage:

And, I suggest, this development is game-changing. Crucially, it means the activity can be drawn out in time, so as to create the ‘thick moment’ of sensation (see Figure 2c above). But, more than that, the activity can be channelled and stabilised, so as to create a mathematically complex attractor state – a dynamic pattern of activity that recreates itself.

It means retrieving the information from memory. Mind you, bodily functions such as hunger is not memory based, nor the bowel movement ( I will explain it for those uninitiated, upon request).

What discussion title would you have used instead? — Luke

"Nicholas Humphrey's Seeing and Somethingness -- His Personal Account of What Goes On In Our Brain If or When We Have Sensations For Those Who Have Not Studied Or Read Or Understood Neuroscience".

Something.

We only back off of it when it gets problematic for us. — frank

Foundationalism isn't problematic to me. If it's challenged, then I'd ask, on what grounds is foundationalism in error or false? No matter what their reasoning is against foundationalism, it is bound to be grounded on something else. Then they're left holding the bag.

If you were told that no matter how hard you tried, you will never ever reach perfection, that flaw is proverbially "a neccesary evil", that perfection and imperfection are a mutually dependent dynamic.

How would it make you feel? — Benj96

I don't care about perfection. I care about optimization -- for example at work, if I'm optimized (and I have benchmarks as a guide), then I'm content. In anything I do, if the requirement is perfection, I'd like to know what would it take. If I have to give my life, then I move on and switch to another activity.

Unfortunately, life is too short for perfection. If we have a thousand years to live, then yes, we can devote every waking hours to this or that endevour. But for mortals like us, there are equally good things to do.

What about the cannibal who showed up too early to dinner?

But at the same time, morality does seem to revolve around what most people think is appropriate behaviour - community standards, etc. What — Tom Storm

Yeah, this notion gets under fire often because it's cloaked in appeal to ad populum. But how else could one talk about a moral view without mentioning that most people also hold the same view? Most people do not want themselves or their families murdered, is this appeal to popularity?

Of course, if your only reason for defending a view is because "most people" hold it, then that's silly. Most people don't think of their trash as damaging to the environment so trash couldn't be that bad.

? — Luke

That's a mislabeled response from me. When I said "no", I meant that you are correct in your explanation of the article, but I disagree with the article.

Do you doubt that the article offers a proposed solution to the hard problem? Have I created bias by announcing that that's what the article is about? — Luke

Yes, I doubt it, and yes you did.

Furthermore, I doubt that anyone would honestly disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem. — Luke

Have they agreed? Sorry if I missed a post here that agreed that the article proposes a solution. I read some who praised the article as a good article or exciting.

Edit:
Just in case I wasn't clear on my first response to the article, I deny that the article promises a solution, I deny that the article has provided an insight (this is important for me) -- what it provided is a caricature of how humans come to be aware of their senses and how it mischaracterized what it meant to philosophy when other philosophers say that our concept of plurality came first before our concept of "self".

He is talking about the evolution of phenomenal consciousness - when it first appeared on the scene. Upon its inception you'll come to believe in your own singular significance because you are now phenomenally conscious; you now have personhood. This is not born of some fantasy or desire for individuality, or of wanting your individual pains and colours to be unique, but merely finding that you have them for the first time. — Luke

No.

The second statement of A seems more of a response to the appeal to emotion of B and not necessarily a retreat of any sort. — NOS4A2

A's statement is more than an appeal to emotion to B. Notice A's shift from a cultural/societal statement to a factual (biology) claim. You can't argue against facts. See below:

In the trans women example, the axiomatic basis on one side would seem to be that biological truth trumps cultural fiction. — apokrisis

B is where the fallacy is. — NOS4A2

I agree.

I call the article by Nicholas Humphrey pop philosophy.

But the puzzling thing is that he saw the chaos of the student activism as contributing to that technocracy. — Jamal

"The experts", as technocrats were referred to, were seen as the ones that could save the government and society from degradation. But the way they were conceived to govern was not through representation by the general public, instead they themselves would set the agenda, the planning of the government, and make decision for the good of the nation. The student activism exhibited sentiments that repeated around the world -- they were anti-war and anti-exploitation of the people. They were also pro-technocrats.

Please peruse the architectural, scientific, and the arts movements at the time.

But i'm premature in my study so what really defines political philosophy?. — LancelotFreeman

Read John Locke and JS Mill.

What is particularly fascinating and at first glance puzzling about this is that he identifies the wild, empty, and irrational pseudo-activity of the students with the increasing “technocratization of the university”. What could he have meant? — Jamal

The intelligentsia and technocrats butted heads. Adorno, Habermas, Mancuse are part of the intelligentsia. The intellectuals were supposed to be the analysts of what's going on in politics and society. 'The government should be a representation by the common people, not a rule by the elites, etc.'

Note that it implies they reject the scientific, objective truth as offered by the experts -- engineers, scientists, etc. -- the technocrats.

Just my 2 cents.

First of all, using the title "A potential solution to the hard problem" is itself biased already because, without first allowing the thread responses to express their criticisms to the points discussed in the article, saying it ahead of time is leading.

I haven't worked out my approach to the problem. It's on my list of chestnuts that I would like to get my head around one day. But I would start by making sure that the problem isn't in the way it is formulated. My suspicion is that it is not capable of solution — Ludwig V

Not to be dismissive of the article myself either. Roughly I agree with you -- the "proposed solution" that the article offers is not the problem (the inquiry) that the ongoing philosophical movement of consciousness is facing.

I can already see some good objections and points of weaknesses. It's because there are neuroscientific studies out there that can deny what his article said. I also find some points to be coming out of thin-air.

For example this passage:

Whenever it happened, it’s bound to have been a psychological and social watershed. With this marvellous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours. You’ll be led to respect their individual worth as well.

I find the underlined cringe-worthy as an analysis of a philosopher. We've always had awareness of the plurality of existence and our own existence. In fact, to refer to "us" presupposes already that I am counting "myself", and vice versa. When philosophers say that the "self" came later after the awareness of others like ourselves, it doesn't mean that we were not aware of our private sensations and perceptions apart from others' private sensations and perceptions. It means that philosophically, or metaphysically, we did not first deliberate on what a "self" is. It was Descartes who first formalized (you can correct me on this) the duality of mind and body. But as common observers of our environment, the early humans and modern humans had it. They got it.

Anyone who wants to deny what I said just above is welcome to correct me.

(Some more criticisms -- "sentition" and "feedback loops". I do get the need in our theory to name our terms as long as we're not trying to re-invent the wheel. And I find that the article attempts to do that. I maybe wrong. )

To cap this, you’ll soon discover that when, by a leap of imagination you put yourself in your fellow creature’s place, you can model, in your self, what they are feeling. In short, phenomenal consciousness will become your ticket to living in what I’ve called ‘the society of selves’.

Again, semantic invention. Except that it didn't happen this way.

AGI will make errors and correct and learn from them hundred of thousands to millions of times faster than human brains can. — 180 Proof

I get it. That was my point. But I was trying to point out to you that human errors are errors peculiar to humans. Which is what makes it interesting to me. Just as a computer could be made perfect, humans organically develop and along the way this development picks up natural selections, mutations, and accidents, which make for an exciting phenomenon.

I'm not trying to compare the abilities of humans and computers. I'm trying to explain why human consciousness (it's redundant to say this) is human.

First of all neuroscience isn't the source of consciousness. — Benj96

*Sigh*. Okay. I'm not interested in continuing. Thanks.

It now occurs to me that my discussion with you is futile. So, I'm ending it here.

Academics, thinkers, activists and philosophers love anonymity as they can focus on ideas... — Benj96

Sadly though, it is also a way to be malicious and get away with it. As we often see in the comments section of youtube, instagram etc. Cowards, catfish, trolls and people who know what theyre doing is wrong also love anonymity. — Benj96

And I say to that, have faith in the rationality of your audience. The test of time will reveal that the victors are the former. If someone is throwing you under the bus, your virtue will do the work for you to prove that the under-the-bus thrower is being malicious, and it should prove that you're not the first of their victims.

This, however, would not be an intrinsic, or fundamental, feature or property of AGI itself, and therefore, it wouldn't (need to) be sentient – certainly not as we conceive of sentience today. — 180 Proof

If ever an AGI is created, it still would not be sentient, as humans are sentient. Or in our usual term, conscious. The measure of consciousness involves also our fundamental propensity to inaccuracy or errors due to the fact that our perceptual qualities have been developed naturally, and overtime; involving actual experiences with objects. It's a lived experience, not created in the laboratory or simulation.

Errors, for example, an experiment involving a measure of duration: two images are flashed to human subjects and they are to judge how long the images were shown. One image is larger than the other. So there's the non-temporal aspect of the experiment - size. Either the subjects would say that the bigger one lasted longer, or the smaller lasted longer, despite the fact that both were flashed at the same length of time.

The inaccuracy is exciting, in my opinion.

The true source being the human brain according to you? A rather large assumption to make I believe. — Benj96

I find this comment puzzling. The true source being the neuroscience. Let's not re-invent the wheel. We have at our disposal a discipline that devoted countless hours to study and explain... the brain.

My suggestion (trying not to sound condescending or. dismissive here) is to really open your mind up to at least contemplating (for funzies) how consciousness could be more basic (time and space perception from matter experiencing energetic impulses/catalytic processes). — Benj96

I don't have a problem contemplating the basics. What I'm saying is, there's our source already. Trying to be creative is another thing -- which I think what you've been trying to do.

A computer does what it does IN time. Anything mathematical is an event that happens in time. — universeness

No. That's just you talking human talk. What does "in time" mean to you? Explain that first. Then try to analyze, for example, the retrieval of information by a computer. The human mind cannot retrieve all words simultaneously from a written text and not get a jumbled mess of information.

(It will be hard for me to explain this to anyone, unless you already have an idea of what it means to be nontemporal).

I've no idea what you mean by "perceive time" or "temporal mind". — 180 Proof

In a manner of speaking, we perceive time as past or present. We also perceive time in terms of duration -- how long or how short.

Temporalism in metaphysics posits that perception necessarily involves the objects of perception as being within a duration or time order of some sort. This is not to say that all objects of perception involves the temporal aspect of thinking -- we do perceive the spatial and nontemporal qualities of objects. The size of a tree is nontemporal, so is the brightness of a light bulb.

Biological computing, combined with genetic engineering may make great advances in the future, especially with AI's help. — universeness

Until they can perceive time, i.e. they develop a temporal mind, they're stuck with a built-in clock calibrated to coincide with the time zones. Math and/or computing is non-temporal. This is the sad reality.
I'm presuming that by "advances", you mean they become humans. If not, I stand corrected.

My issue is that I know I have vivid mental states like dreams which I have every night that have phenomenal content. Including dreams about dead people and places I lived as a child and fictional scenarios.

But my eyes are closed and I am receiving no input from the external world. The number one candidate at the moment for where the dream is occurring is entirely in the brain. — Andrew4Handel

Humans have perception of time, internally -- pulse and heartbeats, as examples. This is our starting point of the temporal nature of the mind. Consciousness develops because of the temporal and spatial nature of the brain itself. It is very common to describe the mind as "mental" (and the brain as physical/material). Yet, while we are correct about the brain, to say that the mind is mental is nonsensical. We are not saying anything new there!

The mind is temporal -- we connect the present with the past and the future, no matter how small the elapsed time is. This is how consciousness comes about. Recognition of things and people and places, regret of the past, anticipation of the future.

Consciousness wouldn't exist if the brain can only produce spatial perception. Why else would Descartes insist on the duality of mind and body?

@lorenzo sleakes ,

To say "you have proven nothing" is ignoratio elenchi (failing to see the point of @180 Proof's response).

On the contrary, I've stated a demonstrable biological fact (re: cell biology). Feel free to refute it with more than mere speculation. — 180 Proof

↪180 Proof
you have proven nothing. some people think that even individual living cells may have some form of sentience in which case a nervous system is not even necessary. But even if a nervous system is necessary does that mean insects or clams are sentient? — lorenzo sleakes

↪lorenzo sleakes
:roll: — 180 Proof

haha! This is the kind of exchange that's pervasive here in the forum. :lol:

There are phantoms pains. People experience pain in a missing limb. This what suggest pain is all in the brain. — Andrew4Handel

No. It just means that the spinal cord and the brain sustained a major trauma (losing a limb) that threw the system into disorder. We never said that the system is perfect -- brains aren't perfect.
When we talk about consciousness, we know we're talking about the system as it functions in human beings.

At 22 pages of this of thread, I'm way too late to contribute productively as I cannot read all of what's already been said. That said, I'm interested in the following points. But I won't answer them as I believe some responses have already done it:

I'll ask you the same as I ask everyone who asks this question...

Why does any of this constitute or necessitate subjective awareness. or consciousness, or the capacity to experience?" — bert1


... What would an answer look like? Give me an example answer. It's doesn't have to be the right answer, just an example of what sort of thing would satisfy you. — Isaac

The potential problem here is that if there is such a thing as first person consciousness, and if first person consciousness is essentially private, then by necessity there can’t be any sort of public, scientific evidence of or explanation for it. — Michael

So, why can't brains do all their stuff without consciousness? — bert1

But when I have a pain in my foot I experience that is in my foot extended out yet that is also a sensation supposed to be experienced in the head. — Andrew4Handel

The pain is in your foot -- but neurons communicate with each other to send to your brain the message that your foot hurts. Your brain doesn't "hurt", it's the acuity of the pain receptors that's responsible for exciting the spinal cord.

I think the single most useless thing one can do is to convince themselves they're not allowed to reformulate or change how they use concepts from "other disciplines" which refer to the "same subject of study" - reality jist for the sake of someone saying "but thats physics you can't do that!". — Benj96

I understand your annoyance. But jgill's objection makes sense. Without some numbers behind your hypothesis, it remains a metaphorical device. And Physics is useless as a metaphor. Really we shouldn't even reduce consciousness to a metaphor -- as contentious as it is already.

For example, this:

So a change in speed/rate is the difference between thought and memory for such a conscious entity. This means distance must be able to expand/contract and time must be able to dilate/contract from net zero (0)when energy is just energy, to some positive integers when energy converts to mass (ie the emergence of the space-time dimension).

Sound familiar? For me it sounds like relativity.

Thought and memory can then be rectified with one another relativistically. And so the hard problem dissolves.
But it means space and time relationships must change for this to happen. — Benj96

Why aren't we talking about the behavior of neurotransmitters and dopamine? Why is hippocampus not mentioned here? I'm at a loss for how to argue about this because we have gone so far away from the true source. We criticize and shun neuroscience, yet we're willing to turn to physics to make our point. Did we sign an exclusive contract with physics? Or do we think that we're taken more seriously if we use physics instead of neuroscience?

What would a life without any wants look like? Is this like purely tranquil sitting and never getting up? — schopenhauer1

No. It's not like that. I can speak about it. Tranquil, yes. But the day to day things you want to do, you do it without anxiety or worry. You sleep better at night. You have more energy.

You see things that need to be done -- oh, the birds want refuge under the canopy with the water sprinkler. I'll turn it on. Or the brush needs trimming. It's things you do at the moment. I hope this makes sense.

Edit: I spoke about it briefly in another thread that I took a hiatus in isolation.

Thank you.

Heidegger famously wrote, “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.” — Tom Storm

I am experiencing another death in my world.
Several months ago, I found out that my cousin and friend was dying of cancer, stage 4. (too young to be dying) I also heard that he didn't want to go on with the treatment. I knew him. We were friends as young teens. Then we separated after high school. He moved away. That was the last time I spoke with him, although I held him close to my heart.

He was an atheist at a very young age, and that got him in trouble within our family circle. The adults didn't like him. He was very vocal about atheism, and how he hated backward mentality. He became very successful in life, through hard work. That earned him even more hatred among relatives and families. What?? A blasphemous psycho owns a commercial building? I was prevented from communicating with him. :sad: Our families have become so political, it's made me angry. Maybe I'm a coward, too, by not being able to go against it.

When I tried to get his phone number so I could talk to him for the last time, I was met with indignation. I was met with silence. All texting stopped and no one was communicating with me. Days ago, I had a feeling of dread - out of the blue. He must have died already. I resolved to grieve for him, even in silence.

Z, this is for you -- Je t'aime. I hope your journey was worth it. You are courageous.

PS: @Tom Storm, thanks for this thread. Sorry, if I hijacked it. I needed an outlet for this emotion.

In this scenario would death in the living world still be bad and something to avoid like it is now where as far as we know your consciousness ceases to exist when your mortal body expires? — Captain Homicide

It would no longer be called "death" but a passing to another realm.

This is how in the ancient times, when human sacrifice was practiced, people did not think of being murdered for the sake of the deity as bad. It was an honor to be bludgeoned at the back of the head because the deity would be pleased.

The tone reminds me of negative theology, let us get to “Reality” by saying what it is not. But we never can get there, and they come up with equally empty slogans like if only we can get a “view from no where” or if we only can get “outside ourselves”. — Richard B

Yep, pure nonsense! — Richard B

No, it's not nonsense. There is something else that needs to be added to the explanation. I've said this before already, and no one seems to care to include it as a corollary to whatever it is we claim about reality so that we don't run into that kind of issue. And that something else is the hypotheses we keep making about the world that stand the test of time and save us from perishing. If the world population now in the 8 billion does not work as evidence for you, then I don't know what would.

So, to support this explanation, please read John Locke and his argument for critical realism.

We can certainly invite each other to that reality, and not sound lame.

Edit: we don't have to use JTB in our explanation of reality outside our mind.