Then we have bleak future ahead of us then.

We are confronted by aliens all the time: alien cultures, politics, ethics and philosophy. We have enormous difficulty in understanding these aliens, and they are right in our midst. They are our neighbors. Thomas Kuhn said that new scientific paradigms become accepted not because everyone is made to understand the new science, but because the old generation dies off.

Yes, we are cumbersome and slow to learn new tricks. But this trick might not be so difficult. I think part of our problem is we have convinced ourselves that it is complicated. Simply because we have not worked it out yet. But this may be a mistake, the trick might be quite simple, but we are blind to it. Have we considered that we are blind, cannot see the obvious?

You see, philosophers and other thinkers have probably thought of the answer amongst all the wrong and equally plausible answers. But we just don’t know if they have, or which one it is. It might well be one of the less plausible answers, or just something so obvious we just can’t see it. I don’t think it is sensible to assume that it is complicated, inconceivable, or profound. We might just be stupid, or blind.

How fortunate.
If only we could all behave sensibly, we could throw off all this physical stuff we are wearing like an old coat and hang out in peace and harmony. I think there’s a word for this.

An alien may as be different to us as we are to a cat.

Would a cat understand if we explained Sartre's theory of existentialism to it?

Would we understand if an alien explained what they know to us?

But in the example I gave, I was not addressing the likelihood, or possibility that an alien would come along who could tell us. I am assuming that. But rather, if such an alien were to arrive and tell us, we would likely have no difficulty in understanding it.
The secrets of existence may be very simple, like a biology lesson. We are just in the unfortunate position of being blind to this truth.
There may be sufficient information, or clues in the world we find ourselves in to work it out. That it just requires some clever, or intuitive thinking to work it out.

Or rather a change in orientation, ‘metanoia’, in us.

While the basic fact of the matter is that Being is an act, not a thing. (Something that is hardly news to Buddhists.)

Or to me neither.

That change you’re referring to is ‘metanoia’, a transformation of perspective.

Thanks, a useful word.

Husserlian Phenomenology is not at all concerned with material existence as it is focused on the experience of consciousness. It is not merely sayign everything is Mental it just does not care about material measurements -- the aim being to figure out an approach that can better ground science in subjectivity.

I don’t know if this has any bearing on any of this, but it plays a role in my thinking.
The idea that each being is a pure consciousness (or spirit) and the world they are born into gives enough structure around them to articulate being and experience. Another way of seeing this is that each human is a consciousness, a pure being. But if this structure weren’t there no one would be able to determine who was who and where one person ended and another began. Also we would all know each others thoughts all the time. The whole world would just be a chaotic mess.

So the constraining structures in our world play a major role in defining who we are when we are in this world. But also they may play a role in educating us to prepare for a world where these structures are reduced and we need to be able to maintain our defining qualities without them. To anchor these features in spirit.

The reason I mention this is that in mysticism there is the idea that there are experiences in which the mind, or normal mental processing involved in the experience, is superseded by the body, or something approximating the soul. Indeed there are whole areas of practice seeking to do this.”
— Punshhh
There certainly are. What's more there are many reports of such events taking place. But are they veridical? By which I mean, not merely are they in fact accurate reports? Are they, perhaps retrospective, even filtered through the expectations of those practicing the practice? Many times, even if you take the reports at face value, they don't look as if they are necessarily veridical, but have quite different aims.

Yes and that is a big problem within mysticism in the current world. It is taught in different ways in many different places. There is no common accepted terminology, or practice. But a philosophical analysis is different from practice and with the caveat that it may be little more than anecdotal, it can be considered and discussed.
There are some things that can be found to be in common in all schools and a can form the basis for further study. For example, to develop means of stilling, or escaping the mind, the world of thinking about things. And to instead acquaint one with one’s body and with other plants and animals via communion and interaction, screening out, or independent of the thinking mind.
There are many other commonalities to be found.

I really like your examples. I shall add them to my collection of stereotype or generalization busters. But extending that model to people, IMO, doesn't help much. I can take on board that people are not just fixed objects, like rocks, but are also a collection of processes, in constant change. So are many of the things that we see. But the phenomenon of a standing wave is very different from the brain waves that you may be thinking of. For one thing, they don't create the same kind of illusions.

Yes, the analogies do become a bit strained when you throw in people. But perhaps if we see the human body as a vehicle that we ride and see out of through the senses. I would include the mind with body ( the computation that goes on in the mind) and reduce the person to an onlooker, soul, or spirit.

Perhaps another analogy is appropriate. That of fire, a world of fires. We have the fire of the strong atomic force, the fire of the weak atomic force. The fire of electricity, the fire of spirit. All these fires interact in complex ways and can accommodate standing waves in an instant. That the fire of spirit equates to consciousness and beings are standing waves in that fire. Being a fire it can readily interact with the other fires, while remaining distinct. Perhaps the fire of electricity is analogous to the activity found in the brain. Electricity can take on many forms and structures with the right structures to work in.

At this moment in time I only know the reality that I exist within at this moment in time. I cannot know anything outside this reality because I cannot know what I don't know.

Yes, I know this and I agree. This is the starting point from which we can begin an enquiry. But unless we dare to go beyond this, then we are stuck, while wearing a pair of blinkers.

I realised this a long time ago and a looked for ways to find out something more. Others have done too and can tell us about it and we can seek a common thread. One in which our conditioned biases etc are screened out.
Also I consider that we would be able to (have the capacity to) know extra knowledge of it were imparted to us. That for example, if an alien were to arrive and tell us how things are, to give us the full explanation of existence in a manual. That we would understand it easily and would find that it tally’s in some way with a natural law, that we have worked out about our bit of experience. Or it might not be an alien telling us, it might be ourselves, animals, or plants, or even gods.

Then how do dead people have knowledge of physical events suring NDEs when their brain is shut off?

I don’t know. There are perhaps two likely reasons for this. The brain is still active for a while, the soul remains somehow with the body.

The brain seems superfluous, like why do we need a brain to cognize and emote about God when we would be expected to have some kind of relationship with God in the afterlife.

Because the brain anchors our consciousness in this physical world. If this weren’t happening our consciousness would be somewhere else entirely and even if it were somehow here, but disembodied. It would have no awareness of the physical stuff that the brain enables us to access.

The world is not a picture, ok. But how then to know it? What do you think about this?

Yes, I know what you are asking.
What I was implying in my post about looking at the railings from the vehicle. Is that we see a picture in the standing wave, the strobe effect. It looks static to us, but in reality it is not, it is moving. But what it is that is moving isn’t what we see, what is moving is a natural element of nature, like water, air, fire, or light. The picture we see is emergent in this and we play a part in seeing it and producing what we see.

By analogy, when a person looks at a rainbow. The position of the rainbow is dependent on their position, the position of the rain and the position of the sun. The position of the rainbow is directly influenced by the position of the viewer. And if there isn’t a viewer, there isn’t a rainbow.

The standing wave is like this, it is only seen and known by an observer and what is seen is determined by the nature of the observer.

Going one stage further, the person viewing the picture is also a standing wave, so something in the movement of the observer and the movement of what they are seeing provides enough stability, is still enough for the experience to seem to be substantial and static in some ways.

So to answer your question, but how then to know it?
To develop wisdom, an appropriate philosophy, to develop ways to connect with nature, to learn from nature.

In fact, no one can know if there is reality itself of which one's own reality is just a part.

It is not as clear cut as that. Some people know a little more than that and can infer a little more again, some can intuit this. Also some can seek guidance, some can develop wisdom, some can learn to interpret ancient teachings and mythologies and gain insight. Others will be taught.

to think of an object not as a completed entity, but as a process.

I agree, the way I see it is like we are fellow travellers, continually on a journey. What we see are things in motion. If the motion were to stop, there would be nothing there. The things are in the motion itself.

We are in vehicles travelling at speed, if you stare at the railings going past, you see a standing wave, a strobe effect, as though the railings are standing still alongside you.

If I see the colour red, is it possible for me to directly see the cause of my seeing the colour red.

If I don't know something, is it possible for me to decide to search for it.

If there is another reality outside my own reality, can I ever discover it.

I exist within my own reality, whatever that reality is. It is logically impossible to discover what exists outside my own reality using knowledge that is part of my own reality.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

I am indeed thinking about standard or normal use. It's use in the context of divine revelations may be different,

What I was thinking of is that there is the ability (in us) for us to witness something inconceivable to us, which we are entirely unable to comprehend. It may be in our unconscious, or the body, that records an imprint of what was witnessed, while our mind, alters it to something more manageable.
In this passage from Ezekiel, this is going on I think.

Ezekiel 10; Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. 11 Such were their faces. They each had two wings spreading out upward, each wing touching that of the creature on either side; and each had two other wings covering its body. 12 Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. 13 The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. 14 The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.

15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. 16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.

There is also the issue of presence (communion) and grace (a kind of hosting by an angelic being).

The reason I mention this is that in mysticism there is the idea that there are experiences in which the mind, or normal mental processing involved in the experience, is superseded by the body, or something approximating the soul. Indeed there are whole areas of practice seeking to do this.

Another example is the lyre bird in Australia, which mimics sounds so perfectly, it’s like hearing the original sound played back on a tape recorder. There must be something superseeding mental activity involved.

coherent

Reminds me of that word, “proof”.

Noodling around on the Internet, I happened upon a book by one Robert Ornstein, who's earlier book on the evolutionary roots of consciousness I bought in the 1990's. (He died in 2018). On Amazon, I find his last book (published posthumously) is called God 4.0:

This passage chimes with me, I have found that there are thresholds or veils in the mind, which blind us to what, what possibilities, are beyond. That it requires a creative means of circumventing, or dissolving these barriers to progress to a broader perspective and recognition of other architecture and possibilities.
I can illustrate this by a description of formal philosophy. It has a rigorous and refined structure which has been developed over a long period. Into which the aspirant is introduced, trained, tested. Taught how to use the architecture, to develop their own architecture, do a PHD. This leaves the aspirant who masters this knowledge a master of critical and analytical thought. But it also results in them finding that in ordinary life these ideas go over the head of their friends and family and in a way they are isolated and have to find other masters of the same art to converse with about these matters.

Now there is another formal architecture of mind out there running parallel to this using a different system. But with different bases, presuppositions, techniques. Which is based more around lifestyle, self realisation, and deconstruction of conditioning. Followed by a rebuilding of mind and being assembled around a spiritual, mystical, or religious architecture. Rigorously developed over millennia, which similarly leaves the student a master of this approach to life and similarly isolated amongst their friends and family.

I would suggest that this is the root of all this sparring and it is incumbent on us to bridge this divide in some way. To circumvent this veil so that we can converse in a more meaningful way.

Thanks, I largely agree with that. Although soul has a lot of baggage and definitions, roles played vary a lot. We are grappling with something intangible, but which we know intimately, but may not know what we know, or that we know it.

I suppose what I was getting at in my question is that we, humans, are basically the same as the other examples in your illustration, but with a computer bolted on. A chimp might have an early IBM computer bolted on. These additions vastly increase processing power, but what do they add apart from that?
Very little I would suggest in terms of their sense of presence, being, consciousness. It roughly boils down to the ability to think, and self reflect, with an enhanced sense of sentience. Otherwise we are pretty much the same. In some ways, perhaps it amounts to a regression. Certainly when it comes to social and ecosystem behaviour, no other animal is so stupid.

I’m not accusing you of this, but we should remain guarded against belittling the experience of other animals and indeed plants. Or placing ourselves on a pedestal.

In my practice I revere the presence and wisdom in the plants and animals around me.

Some people are unaware of physicalism for the same reason fish are unaware of water.

Does a fish know what it’s like to be wet?

Animals and plants are pretty much identical to humans when it comes to the cellular structure. So how come their soul is markedly different to that of humans?

Certainly. How I define non-physical is, 'That which is not comprised of something physical.' For me there is a strange notion in science that has not been answered yet. It very well could be that this is an opportunity for something non-physical, but then again it can also be a placeholder until we figure out more.

For me it is 'attraction'. And I don't mean the love kind. Weak force, strong force, gravity...there is something so counter to the idea of what is physical in this. Let me explain.

As far as I can see, you are talking about how gravity works. Well Einstein gave an explanation, that in the fabric of spacetime there is an effect like a gradient between masses drawing them together. Yes there may be something immaterial about that, but the theory doesn’t suggest it.

Another is an uncaused reality, and this one I'm much more certain on. This is mostly attributed to a god, but I mean the reality that the universe ultimately, must be uncaused.

I understand your thought process here, but I fall in behind Bob Ross and Timothy on that discussion. Although personally I would say how we and the universe came into existence is a deep mystery and it’s pointless trying to work it out until someone (who knows) comes along to tell us how it works.

And focus on the above well-known argument is that if we assume a different kind of something then we are met with a problem of not being able to understand Causation as we have one unknown entity interacting with another without knowing anything about its basic workings.

Not necessarily, as I suggested, experiential worlds are and can only be this way. The different kind of something, (if it’s there) uses the experiential world as a vehicle. Utilises the structure for some reason.

To jump into highly speculative territory the mental stuff could be atemporal and therefore to talk of 'causation' would make little to no sense.

The other stuff could be atemporal* and as you say talk of causation (as we see it) would make little sense. Unless we posit a demiurge training baby demiurges through the experiential worlds. As I suggested in my first post.

* I had a lucid dream in which I experienced time atemporally. Laid out like a series of rooms viewed from above, the past on the left and the future on the right.

Consciousness emerges out of a subtle interplay of electrical states and processes within the cells of the body. This life then animates the body (a colony of cells). Resulting in sentient conscious beings.

The dynamical structures at issue, in the case of living organisms, are autopoietic in the sense articulated by Maturana and Varela. The whole is structured in such a way as to ensure the production of the parts, and the parts (e.g. the organs, or cellular organelles) are structured in such a way as to sustain the organization of the whole.

Yes, we are a colony of cells which readily (it seems) organise into complex organisms and organisms with rational minds. Minds in which reason can free the being from the mythological interpretation of the world. To emerge from the Dreamtime into a world of insight in the clear light of day. There does seem to be a teleology going on there.
But what is the next stage, are we supposed to launch off into space, colonise other planets and form the intergalactic federation? Are we supposed to stay here on earth and start manipulating material into some sort of nirvana? Or are we supposed to focus on sustainability and nurture the biosphere which kindly brought us into being?
There is a steep trajectory here and unless we answer these questions sharpish, we will more likely fall back into another fallen species in a long line failed experiments*.

*it may already be too late.

That is, if we assume that physicalism is actually wrong (I know you are familiar with IF questions) and there is something else going on, then the Causal relation between Mental and Mental Acts compared to Physical to Physical may very well be quite different. If so then obviously there is a problem when then framing a Physical to Mental or Mental to Physical causal stream.

I think there is something else going on, but that the causal relationships in our experiential world are the way they are because that is how experiential worlds work. That the other thing going on works with that as a vehicle, or structure.
Although, another option might be that our experiential world is an artificial construct. Rather like a play, in which the causal relationships are determined by the narrative chosen by the playwright. Take A Mid Summer Nights Dream for example. Where the world is reinterpreted as a world of fairies and fairylore explains why and how things happen the way they do.

But if there is nothing fixed, how do we know that we are travelling? Or rather, how do we tell the difference between our travelling and the rest of the world travelling?

We don’t, normally, we just get on with our lives. I’m just identifying that all is in motion. Although I think we talk about things happening, in motion, perhaps more than we realise.

To be perceived is to stand out as a gestalt. To stand out as a gestalt is to be identified, although not necessarily in a linguistically self-reflective sense, since non-linguistically enabled animals are obviously capable of identifying the things that matter to them in their environments.

Yes in the way animals perceive, is what I was getting at. This is also present in a human, because we are also an animal. There are circumstances in every day life in which this kind of perception is exercised.

But when I say witnessed, to bear witness. I am going deeper, into our psyche. What we witness, even if not perceived, is recorded as the imprint of the experience of witnessing something. This imprint can be recovered later as part of memory. For example, one might glimpse a weird painting, a Salvador Dali for example. With no idea who the artist is and the nature of his work. But later on, while learning about the artist remember what was witnessed and recognise the same painting when viewing a selection of his work. It had left an imprint (or an emotion, a reaction) even if seen for just for a fleeting moment.

For me it is 'attraction'. And I don't mean the love kind. Weak force, strong force, gravity...there is something so counter to the idea of what is physical in this. Let me explain.

Another is an uncaused reality, and this one I'm much more certain on. This is mostly attributed to a god, but I mean the reality that the universe ultimately, must be uncaused.

Thanks, I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.

A little ironic considering I've been asking for a clear definition of non-physical and an example of its existence that does not entail the physical. I'm not arguing to just argue, I'm discussing with you and will happily agree if what is being said is clear and logical.

Apologies, that’s just how you came across to me. I did say that a “proof” (which is what you were asking for) was not going to be possible, though.

For Deleuze it is in the nature of differences that they always produce themselves within and as assemblages, collectives. The relative stability of these multiplicities does not oppose itself to change but evinces continual change within itself that remakes the whole in such a way that the whole remains consistent without ever being self-identical.

I work with the notion of anchors (crosses), a series of which the being transcends throughout their development. From primitive life forms to the transfigured being. Each cross anchoring the being within an arena of experience.

We “identify” based on the criteria (even habitual, unaware) of a specific shared practice (the kind of object), which is different than vision, the biological mechanism. Identification also having to do with which aspect, what you are looking at (on the object) as evidence, and the other criteria for identification (perhaps particular to this kind/type of object), not to mention how “seeing/perceiving” itself works (not immediately, wholey), instead involving focus (where we are looking), that we are usually telling someone else what we see, etc.

Yes you are right, I should have qualified my statement to the effect that I was considering pure being. Being unhindered by conditioning and social practice. I come to this discussion from the mystical perspective, in which my time is concerned with witness by (pure) being. Rather than language associated with experience. In the example I gave the person witnessing the inconceivable is taken out of themselves, thus leaving the conditioning behind.

Now I am thinking of how beings are witnessing in their daily lives and I think it is more like how you say.

object? “To be perceived, something merely needs to be witnessed.”

I think there is some ambiguity around the word perceived. (Which I realised after posting) I was thinking of it meaning something is noticed, but not identified. Whereas for Ludwig, it might have meant to identify what was seen.

This is one issue I spend a lot of time on in my practice. But not necessarily in a format amenable to philosophical analysis.

I mentioned in an earlier post there are a few things that might be non-physical, they've just never come up.

Care to elaborate?

I just got obfuscation. If you start to pin him down he will miraculously agree with you.

If you don't identify the object you perceive, how do you know what you have witnessed?

To witness something you only have to be present, you don’t have to think, or know anything. The best way to describe what I mean is in regard to revelation. During revelation, the person (who witnesses) is hosted by a heavenly being and witnesses something which they can’t understand, which is inconceivable. And yet they bare witness to what happened. The Old Testament is full of descriptions of people witnessing things which there are not words to describe. It is the heavenly host who enables them to witness by allowing them to see through their eyes. To become the host, to witness the event, or state and then to be returned to the world. During this process the witness, doesn’t have the mental capacity to process the information. But they know, experienced what happened in some way.

So something is witnessed before the mind then processes the sensory information.

although the Buddha said there is nothing not subject to change

“Subject to”.
Is there something absent change, or would that be nothing at all. Or there could be no thing, other than change.
This would suggest that upon enlightenment the Buddha ceases to be a thing.

Thanks for an insightful post.
Something I contemplate at length is how being is somehow static and mobile. Neither one nor the other.
A static being is like the Buddha in stillness.
A mobile being is like a presence observing life as if watching the world go by through the window of a vehicle. An experience of events while travelling, rather than places and moments. The sense of self is experienced as a presence in and defined by the movement. We are fellow travellers, rather than fellow fixed states.

The logic of thinking difference involves things which are identified as being different. I don't see how you can escape that.

Don’t you mean perceived, rather than identified.
To be perceived, something merely needs to be witnessed, this does not require identification.

I believe consciousness is informational in nature, not physical. And so like for all informational things, it is a mistake to call consciousness physical, conflating it with its medium, the brain.

I agree with your point here, but I think it is necessary in a discussion about consciousness to delineate consciousness and mind, or mental activity. As I find they are often confused.
Consciousness is the aliveness, sentience of a being.
Mind is information processing and storage.

They are both intimately involved in experience, but are quite different.

No, I'm dismissing it because you can't show that it exists. You need to explain what it is to have a non-physical thing exist, then demonstrate that such a thing actually exists in reality.

I note you didn’t answer my question, what sort of proof do you require? You do understand, I presume how hard it is to prove something.
I have put forward a rational argument for consciousness to be present in life forms. A presence which doesn’t appear to be necessary if the world is just physical. If the argument has merit, it is inappropriate to dismiss it on the grounds that what it entails can’t be proved, prior to an appraisal of the argument.
As I said, it is dismissing a philosophical enquiry on the grounds that it can’t be proved to be valid, in the terms of one particular philosophical position, which is generally regarded to be opposed to it, ie physicalism.
I can predict now that whatever I say, it will be rejected out of hand for not meeting these requirements.

Yes, it is emergent from physical processes alone. No, the physical processes for consciousness must occur to have consciousness. This is why we can put someone under anesthesia and knock them unconscious. We stop the physical process of the brain responsible for consciousness.

Correction, you are claiming that consciousness is emergent from computation alone, aren’t you?
Saying it is emergent from physical processes is hand waving, because that also includes what a I am saying and which you were denying previously.

I noted that objectively by some AIs actions, they have very low level consciousness.

Show me that they are conscious? They may be philosophical zombies, ie perfect mimics.

Its incredibly difficult, and part of the hard problem of consciousness. Do you see green the way I do? We have color blind people who don't. What do they see the different colors as?

Line of argument is used in discussions of qualia, about differences between people’s qualia due to genetic variation. It doesn’t include the fact that 99% of the experience of one person is identical to that of another, with a nuance of difference. If we were not near as dammit identical clones, our social activity would be far more difficult. This is not comparable to the obvious differences between the conscious experience of a mouse and a high spec’ computer.

Consciousness is a presence of a being and self in the world with all that entails. It is the anima Mundi of living organisms. A dynamic electrical force, field, unifying the whole being, as an entity.

Its a fun thought experiment, but its essentially the 'evil demon' argument from Descartes or 'brain in a vat'.

It isn’t, it is a serious argument. Can you give me one thing in a zombie world which could not be accomplished by an identical unconscious being, which is accomplished in our world of conscious being’s?

We cannot know that. For all we know, there is a subjective experience of being a single cell.

You’ve just accepted my rational argument. That’s pretty much what I was claiming and you were rejecting.

Of being even something we don't consider life like an atom. After all, we are composed of atoms, so there is something in matter that causes a subjective experience. We just don't know fully what that is yet.

So why are you dismissing it out of hand one minute and then considering it the next.

We don't have the answer to what its like for something else to subjectively experience, therefore it is outside of what can be known.

This is incorrect, it can be known, we are it. We don’t fully know the processes involved, be it is known, we just need to be able to see the wood for the trees.

A physical process is a supervenient relationship to the physical entities involved in the process. You'll need to explain specifically why it’s not a physical process.

I’m not saying it isn’t a physical process, it’s just a different physical process, an ethereal one in a supevalent relationship with it’s physical partner.

What was your point?

You are dismissing the ethereal being because it can’t to demonstrated physically to exist.

No, consciousness is simply a more advanced form of computation.

To the extent, perhaps, that a chemical reaction is a form of computation. But that does not encompass what consciousness is.
You seem to be about to declare that consciousness is emergent from computation alone. That if there is sufficient computation going on in a system, or body, then it will be conscious.

Is AI subjectively conscious? Who knows? We never will.

I don’t know why anyone would think that AI might be conscious. Perhaps they conflate intelligence with consciousness. They are not the same thing. Take the example of an old fashioned computer, indeed one could be made out of pulleys and rope. If big enough it could perform advanced computation. Would it at some point become conscious, Pulleys and rope?

Just like I won't know what its like for you to be subjectively conscious as you are either.

It’s not that difficult, we are near identical. In a sense humans are all clones of a common ancestor. Genetic variation does not alter that to any great extent.

As for objective forms of consciousness, yes, AI could be said to be conscious. Not to the level of a human, but more at the level of a bug or fish. We have robots and other forms of AI that have environmental awareness, self-modeling, and learning. Do they have subjective emotional feelings? Don't know. But a robot can have stress detectors and speed up or slow down rapidly to avoid obstacles it would consider it should avoid. Does that entire process gain an overall 'feel' like we do? Who knows.

Yes, that all makes sense, but it doesn’t capture consciousness, it’s all within the scope of computation and intelligence. A computer with sensory apparatus (stress detectors) measuring changes in its environment and able to control other apparatus which can perform physical tasks. Can be like a human, or a bug, or a fish. But it is still a mechanical machine, you know levers and rope.

Have you come across the idea of a philosophical zombie? There could be another universe like ours, but without any consciousness. There could be advanced life, indeed humans just like us. But no one is conscious. There would be no other difference.

This just sounds like you're separating physical matter from 'physical matter in action and process'. If it’s not physical, what is it? This is always the problem. You have no real definition of non-physical that we can clearly point to that doesn't involve the physical. Can you explain non-physical apart from 'a physical process'?

I don’t have a problem, because I’m not trying to prove the existence of an ethereal body using physical means and parameters. That’s for you to think about, as that’s what you are asking for.

As I said in my rational argument, there is not requirement in the world as described in physical terms for consciousness to exist (do tell me if there is?). Therefore its existence must be for another reason. Which is to evolve a subtle, or ethereal being. Naturally this cannot be measured physically, because it’s not physical.

Let me suggest a way of looking at this. When life was first evolving, that simple form of computation, chemical reactions, which I mentioned earlier. This developed until there were self replicated units. Primitive cells.
Once they were self replicating,( I am oversimplifying to make my point) they were able to evolve more sophisticated forms. All very well, they were like our philosophical zombie. But then something happened that was due to something in the chemicals, constituting these cells. Something not produced by the computation, but that was present in the materials they were made of. The electrical charge somehow became an electrical field encompassing the whole cell. Some cells adapted to this new phenomenon and found it enhanced their development and rate of survival in a competing pools of new organisms. Then at a later stage, this integrated organism with an electric field and properties became conscious. Not through the computation, but through the electrical activity involved in that computation.

So we have organisms with a form of consciousness based on metabolic reactions, including complex electrical interactions and states, out of which emerges a primitive consciousness. This is not emergent out of information processing. But an electrical metabolic process, where the process is about organising molecules into structures in the cell, so as to self replicate and compete in a competitive pool of organisms.

This would then develop into larger sentient beings, long before they developed brains and information processing like we see in the human brain.

Consciousness came before intelligence. Not the other way around.

Again, sounds like you're ascribing what is non-physical to a physical process.

No, they coexist in a supervenient relationship.

You have just re-asserted your claim that anything that can’t be proved to exist is a figment of my imagination. You have proved my point for me.

What proof do you require?

Yes, that's consciousness. Consciousness does not exist as some independent ethereal thing. It’s simply a category of physical process from the brain.

That’s not consciousness, it’s computation. The brain performs computation, like a computer. Are computers (AI even) conscious? They can perform the same computation as the brain, surely.

Consciousness is something present in organisms which have a very primitive brain, or no brain. In genetics terms we are closely related to trees. They are more conscious than any super computer and yet they don’t have a brain.

What requirement does a brain have for consciousness? Computation will do all that is required.

This is simply creating a category, but not denying its a physical process.

I am denying it’s a physical process, it has a supervenient relation to the physical. It is hosted by the physical, but is itself not physical.

You remove the physical process, this 'non-physical' thing does not exist independently as something real.

Perhaps, but the physical being would not exist either, in this scenario, they are joined at the hip.