As a panpsychist I go much further, and assert that any behaviour at all, including the behaviour of atoms, is valuable for the mind of the atom. Everything happens because of consciousness. I've been toying with the idea that all causation is actually psychological.
— bert1

I would class this understanding along with such other non-physicalist explanations of reality as Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis. They are metaphysical approaches and, so, there is no empirical way of testing them. They are not facts, they are ways of thinking about something. As I see it, they are not useful ways of thinking, but that is certainly opinion, not fact. — T Clark

'Metaphysical' yes, although perhaps 'conceptual' might be a better word. Opinion is contrasted with knowledge rather than fact. Panpsychism might be a fact, but one that I don't know empirically. I might know it conceptually though.

Well if nature is fundamentally physical, then subjective experience doesn't conceptually fit. The biological level is still function and structure. — Marchesk

That's interesting. I frequently wonder what the word 'physical' means. I think it may be 'whatever has structure which does stuff (function).' And I agree that subjective experience doesn't really fit, as I said in the OP, "Why can't all that (structure and function) happen anyway without consciousness?"

Why should we accept that definition for machine consciousness? It's not the same thing as qualia. You just created an arbitrary definition and assigned it to 'consciousness'. It doesn't answer the question of whether a machine can have qualia. — Marchesk

Indeed. This happens a lot, even academics do it. Functionalists sometimes end up saying 'but that's just what I mean by consciousness'. Which is fine, but then they're not talking about consciousness as we know it, Jim.

"Why did you do that?" - list of motives
"Why is the sky blue?" - physical cause of 'blueness'
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" - surprising answer (or non answer) designed to amuse
"Why do humans have noses?" - evolutionary (or developmental) advantages of the nose...

"Why do we have consciousness?" - ...

... what's the kind of answer that goes there? — Isaac

In this thread, it's like your second example: "Why is the sky blue?" - physical cause of 'blueness'

I want to know the physical 'cause' of consciousness, if anyone thinks there can be a plausible account of this. But I'm happy if people want to use a different verb than 'cause', because 'cause' implies a duality that some might not want.

OK, science geeks, how do we determine whether an AI is conscious? What do we do? What tests do we give it? — RogueAI

Another good question. It seems to me we'd have to assume a hypothesis first that makes a prediction which we then test. How do we choose a hypothesis? All the (serious) current theories of consciousness make predictions that are compatible with observation. How do we choose between them? I think we have to do it conceptually at the moment - check for things like consistency, fidelity to definitions, entailing the fewest/least-serious problems etc.

Specifically with regard to AI, it has been argued that we might be able to interrogate it to see if it understands the concept of consciousness, to see if can introspect its own awareness. I'm not sure about that.

Suppose we create a mechanical brain that we believe is functionally equivalent to a normal working brain. For those who think science can explain consciousness, how would we scientifically determine whether the mechanical brain is conscious or not? — RogueAI

Good question. Indeed the same question applies to other humans too. How do we scientifically determine if another human is conscious, without begging any questions?

EDIT: I'm still replying to posts from page 6. Nicky's unfortunate suicide should hasten the process of me catching up. It would be weird to reply to his posts without him being able to respond.

I'll let the moderators make the judgements about banning, but I strongly disagree with your judgement about the quality of his philosophy. I think he brought something valuable to the forum. Again - that's not a criticism of this decision. — T Clark

I more or less agree. I found his unpleasantness easy to ignore. But he pretty much asked to be banned in his last post, and he robusty refused moderation.

@Nickolasgaspar Don't martyr yourself just yet! You've made some interesting points I still want to get to. Especially where you said something about necessary and sufficient conditions.

EDIT: Part of the reason I created this thread is to give you a place to let off some steam without being off-topic, so you were less likely to be banned.

I have posted many times a specific scientific definition of the term. Try to keep up or don't waste my time. — Nickolasgaspar

Your definition is theory-laden. It's not the definition in the OP of the thread. I don't recall you offering a definition of the self. Fooloso4's statement is well within the bounds of reasonable. If you feel Fooloso4 is wasting your time, I suggest in future you cut your losses at the moment you finish reading a time-wasting post. It seems to me that that you compounded your lost time by further investing in a reply.

It means that people with existential anxieties will always find excuses to embrace a comforting idea able to separate their existence from their a biological body with an expiration date. — Nickolasgaspar

I do explicitly say in my post the self can be distinguished from consciousness. I'll die, and nothing of me will be left over, except my products I suppose. And my profound influence on Western culture.

It's just that there's little woo potential in pretending the relationship between legs and walking is deeply mysterious so we just accept it as simple. — Isaac

What woo am I trying to monger?

Yup. The one in my avatar has been a good friend. Reliable. Good listener.

@Nickolasgaspar

Right, I have got around to looking at a couple of those articles you linked to. Thank you for doing that. I was relieved to discover they were concise and clear summaries, which makes my job a lot easier. Starting with this one:

https://neurosciencenews.com/l5p-neuron-conscious-awareness-14997/

This article very encouragingly and clearly stated the distinction between state consciousness and contents of consciousness:

Most neuroscientists chasing the neural mechanisms of consciousness focus on its contents, measuring changes in the brain when it thinks about a particular thing – a smell, a memory, an emotion. Quite separately, others study how the brain behaves during different conscious states, like alert wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep or anesthesia.

Great! It goes on to say that most neuroscientists think the two are indivisible, but I'm not sure if they mean conceptually indivisible or physically indivisible.

This distinction is also reflected in dictionaries, e.g. dictionary.com has these in its first two definitions:

State consciousness:

"the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc."

Contents of consciousness:

"the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people"

The article offers some neurological findings about the connection between the two. State consciousness is thought to be linked closely to the 'thalamo-cortical' circuits:

Our conscious state is thought to depend on the activity of so-called ‘thalamo-cortical’ circuits..... Thalamocortical circuits are thought to be the target of general anesthesia, and damage to these neurons due to tumors or stroke often results in coma.

Whereas the content is thought to depend on the cortex:

...functional brain imaging studies locate the contents of consciousness mostly within the cortex, in ‘cortico-cortical’ circuits.

And they are linked, and this is the new bit:

Aru and colleagues believe that L5p neurons are uniquely placed to bridge the divide.

So the punchline is that there is an anatomical connection between the neurology of state-consciousness and content-consciousness.

I have no problem with the science of all this. What they are calling state-consciousness I suspect includes an assumed phenomenal consciousness but also includes observable arousal levels. In this thread I am concerned phenomenal consciousness, which is much closer to the concept of state-consciousness than content-consciousness.

The difficulty I have is, again, conceptual. First, the neuroscientists have found correlations between brain function and (assumed or reported) experience and arousal levels. That doesn't tell us what the relationship consists in, it only tells us there is a reliable relationship. The relationship between legs and walking is clear, the latter is what the former does. But in the case of experience and brain function it is not so clear what verb we should use (e.g. 'is', 'realises', 'gives rise to', 'produces', 'instantiates' 'manufactures', 'entails', 'causes', 'encodes', etc etc...). Secondly, consideration is not given to the conceptual difference between the self and consciousness. What, phenomenologically, is the difference between x losing consciousness, and x ceasing to exist (where x is defined functionally)? As far as I can tell, there's no difference. No experience either way. It is conceptually less problematic to suppose that, under anaesthesia, the self is dissolved, even though we speak of 'losing consciousness'. I can argue why that is less problematic in another post.

So that's the first of the two articles I'll look at. I do another one from @Nickolasgaspar's list when i get a mo.

I classify phenomenal consciousness as a mental process. That's the kind of a thing I say it is. The category I say it belongs in. One of the characteristics of a mental processes is that they are behaviors or at least that they manifest themselves to us as behaviors.

If it's not a mental process, what kind of a thing is it? What category does it fit in? — T Clark

That's an interesting question. Lets have a run through of the obvious possibilities (some of which may overlap):

- substance
- matter/field
- entity/object (persistent behaviour of a field)
- property (x-ness)
- process
- action/behaviour
- function
...any others?

You can define it by fiat however you want, but that risks going off topic. The dictionary definition I gave in the OP is arguably compatible with any of these options. I vote 'property'. That fits most naturally with language as well.

We know by analogy. We know what our experience feels like, how it makes us act. It would be silly for us not to interpret other people's similar behavior as something other than the same type of experience we have.

I'm sympathetic to the argument from analogy, but I know some find it unconvincing.

Much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness.

That may well be true of us-as-human. But the behaviour we don't drive might be driven by the consciousness of other entities.

That’s because consciousness is a property of organisms, which are a great deal more than brains and nervous systems. Sapiens, for example, have digestive, endocrine, skeletal, respiratory and other systems. Each of these are required for human consciousness. — NOS4A2

Humans are, indeed, required for human consciousness. What is required for rock consciousness? A rock?

I would say that consciousness causes (some) behaviour, not that (some) behaviour is consciousness. As I mentioned before, I can think many things that I never "manifest" in behaviour. — Michael

I broadly agree. Some (forget the name of the guy I'm thinking of) say that there are no absolutely private facts about your experience. They say it is in principle (even if we don't yet have the tech) to access all the facts about your experience by examining brain function. However the guy I'm thinking of (I'll find who it is) says that nevertheless, there are two ways of accessing these facts. Of course, I think this 'two ways' is just another acknowledgement of privacy. My way of accessing my experience is private, even if I can't ultimately keep a secret in the face of a mind-scanner.

Sorry, everyone, I'm still catching up. I'm only on page 5. I'll probably be jumping around a bit.

There are many papers that explains how personal experiences arise from brain function, how pathology, physical injury and intoxication/physical condition can affect their quality and how we are able to diagnose and repair problematic states of consciousness. — Nickolasgaspar

Yes, every position on consciousness, including the most woo of the magic woo ones involving invisible ghostly ectoplasm and cosmic fairies, all understand that alterations to brain function affect what we experience. Of course they do. No one denies that. Getting drunk affects what we experience, as does getting hit in the head, as does receiving sensory input of any kind, etc etc. The issue is how does the capacity to experience anything at all get there in the first place. That's the contested bit. One way to bring out this distinction is to contrast consciousness simpliciter, with what we are conscious of.

The problem is NOT just with your questions but your previous answers which allow me to guess your intention behind those questions. — Nickolasgaspar

Please no guessing! It's hard enough when we try and respond to what people actually say. If we start talking to what we think are people's hidden motives it'll be absolute chaos.

Correct, why questions are a slippery slope for...getting back in bed with Aristotelian teleology and enabling the pollution of our epistemology. — Nickolasgaspar

'Why' questions aren't always about teleology. They just ask for an explanation of some kind. We're not going to be able to have a conversation if every time I ask "why such and such" you say I'm looking for a teleological (or even just evolutionary) explanation. What I'm asking for in this thread is an explanation in terms of physical processes. Similar to the question I'd ask of a mechanic with my car "Why won't my car start?" I'm not looking for the answer "Because it's sulking and doesn't want to drive through a puddle and get its tyres all wet." Nor am I looking for the answer "Because the designer of the car designed it to stop working after 100,000 miles so you have to buy a new one." I'm looking for an answer in terms of the structure and function of the car. It's odd that you impute this intention to seek teleological answers to Chalmers as well.

Why would I be special as member of the same species? — Marchesk

That's an interesting argument for other minds. A subject for another thread perhaps.

I cannot make sense of a complaint that a question has not been answered for which the complainant cannot provide any clue as to what the answer would look like. It seems to me to be an essential ground for knowing the question hasn't been answered. Otherwise, maybe it has, who knows? — Isaac

I'd like to be able to provide you with some answer. I can't, I don't think. What I can do is say something else which might help. The word 'produce' has been used a few times in the thread so I'll go with that for now. Consider:

a) Consciousness is produced by a brain (or at least a body with a brain in it)
b) The universe was produced by an eternal cosmic unicorn that spewed forth quarks and what-have-you from it's horn.

Obviously, (a) is a serious claim and (b) is ludicrous. However, I actually find (b) more intelligible in a way. I can sort of imagine it. We have a physical unicorn, a structure which does things, producing more structure which in turn does more stuff. The producer is broadly the same kind of thing as the product. (a) on the other hand, I can't even get my head around. The producer is so different from the product it seems impossible that they are the same kind of thing. But maybe that's my failing.

I wonder if we could usefully do an analyisis of 'levels' of possibility, and what trumps what.

Logical impossibility, e.g. (- (a & -a))
trumps
Conceptual impossiblity (possibly including linguistic impossibility, e.g. I can't be both a bachelor and married)
trumps
Empirical impossibility (can't go faster than the speed of light)
trumps
Technological impossibility (can't build a dyson sphere - but perhaps could be overcome in time)
trumps
Epistemic impossibility (it may be possible but we can't know how - perhaps this doesn't fit neatly in the list)

I don't think I've done a good job of that at all, others may be able to tidy that up, but you get the idea. I'm sure there must be a SEP article dealing with this stuff. @Banno? @fdrake?

EDIT: Here we go:

Sentences (1)–(10) instantiate different kinds of modality. (1–3) are most naturally interpreted to be about metaphysical modality; (4) about logical modality, (5) about conceptual modality, (6) about epistemic modality, (7) about physical modality, (8) about technological modality, and (9–10) about practical modality. — SEP

So, for me at least, the unicorn creator would be conceptually possible, but empirically impossible, knowing what we do about the world from our scientific investigations.

The idea of consciousness arising from brains seems logically possible, but, at least for me, it gets stuck at the conceptual stage. So the science of it doesn't even get off the ground, as conceptual impossibility trumps that. But of you don't find any conceptual issues, them perhaps it does become a scientific matter, and neuroscience gets traction.

EDIT: So maybe I can give you an answer. What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.

It doesn't seem objectively unreasonable to me that physical processing should give rise to a rich inner life. It seems clear to me that it can and it does. Note I said "clear," not "obvious" or "established." I certainly could be wrong. I look for reasons why it should seem unreasonable to others and I can come up with two answers. 1) Cognitive scientists seem to be a long way from identifying the neurological mechanisms that manifest as experience. I'm not really sure how true that is, but I don't think it's a good reason. 2) People just can't imagine how something so spectacular, important, and intimate as what it is like to be us could just be something mechanical. — T Clark

Thanks, that's interesting. I've taken the liberty of bolding a few of the words in there. I want to make a list of verbs that have been used to characterise the relationship between consciousness and a physical system. Perhaps as the basis for another thread, I could do a poll maybe.

As to the substance of what you say:
1) This perhaps is related to arguments from ignorance. I've been told that's what I'm doing several times, and that might be right. Maybe I just haven't read enough neuroscience. Maybe I lack faith in the scientific method which, after all, is easily the best method we have had so far in our history at arriving at reliable/true/useful theories about the world. Philosophy, which again has been pointed out to me many times, it completely fucking hopeless by comparison. Having said all that, the issues seem to me to be conceptual rather than empirical. Sometimes scientists need philosophers to help them out a bit with the concepts (yeah that's patronising, I don't care. Just as philosophers are often shit at science, scientists are often shit at philosophy too). One example of an important conceptual matter is the idea that consciousness does not, conceptually, seem to admit of borderline cases. Another example is the separation of different senses of 'consciousness', which Chalmers apparently does as you've quoted. Lexicographers also have a role to play here in clarifying what it is people actually use the word for. Maybe hard-bitten neuroboffins on the one hand and fairy woo-mongers on the other are talking about different things and are failing to actually disagree.

2) That may be true of some, but I don't think it's true of many philosophers. People like Brian Cox and Dawkins make much of this point - going on and on about how the wonders of the natural world are not diminished by their physical basis. I think it basically a straw man, no serious woo-mongers actually make this point.

And of course the mind, and in particular experience, isn't just something mechanical, just the operation of the nervous system, any more than life is just chemistry. The mind emerges out of neurology. The mind operates according to different rules than our nervous system. We call the study of the mind "psychology." I don't have any problem conceiving of that, even though I don't understand the mechanisms by which it could happen. — T Clark

(Collecting my list of verbs again) OK, so you're a non-reductionist about the mind. That's obviously fine but it creates a problem. If mind isn't just the operation of a nervous system, what is it? A simple unsophisticalted identification (the simplest way to be a physicalist) between neural activity and consciousness is no longer an option. One option is to take a hierarchical systems approach, saying that whole systems and sub-systems have properties unique to each 'level' and these have upward and downward causation powers, and that various components of mind, including consciousness, is somehow captured with these concepts. I think @apokrisis thinks something along these lines (no doubt I have got it wrong somewhat wrong).

If there are other reasons for rejecting a neurological basis for phenomenal consciousness, you haven't provided it. You've only really found fault with reasons why scientists say there is one. Your argument is primarily a matter of language, not science.

Sure, but it depends what you're looking for. I don't have a falsification. For example, I can't take @Nickolasgaspar's theory, use it to make a prediction, and then make an observation that falsifies that prediction. So if that's what you want from a critique, I can't offer that. One thing philosophers can offer is a mapping of the theoretical landscape, so the broad options are all clearly visible, and the pros and cons of each laid out. Then we can provisionally pick one as a result of an abductive inference. The joke I don't get tired of repeating is taken from Churchill: "Panpsychism is the worst theory of consciousness apart from all the others." The idea here is roughly that one of three options must be true: eliminativism, panpsychism or emergence. We pick the least problematic.

As for the function issue, we're not really talking about brain function, we're talking about mind function. I'm positing that not neurological function but neurological mechanism and process are the basis of mind function.

Don't quite follow that bit.

I think most would agree that phenomenal consciousness is a valuable mental resource and capability.

Sure, absolutely. As a panpsychist I go much further, and assert that any behaviour at all, including the behaviour of atoms, is valuable for the mind of the atom. Everything happens because of consciousness. I've been toying with the idea that all causation is actually psychological. We move about and do things because of how we feel. So do atoms and molecules and everything else. That's not to say mechanism doesn't exist. Just to say that mechanism is derivative of will, and a macro-effect supervening on lots of things all doing what they want. @Banno mentioned the difficulties with the concept of physical causation and linked to the SEP article, for which I was grateful. I need to read that more and reflect. The whole idea is a bit of a switcheroo.

Have to stop there, back to work for me. Thanks for interesting post.

I'll pick two at random then.

What do you think of Tononi's IIT? I read that one. He's a neuroscientist.

Can you state in you own words how the brain generates consciousness?

OK. How conscious are the latest famous bots ? Do they have selves ? — green flag

You mean like ChatGPT? Not sure. It's a good question. I think probably not, although the matter in the chips that run the program is.

So the dead do or do not have consciousness ? — green flag

The dead don't exist any more. But as a good panpsychist I think that the rotting corpse is conscious. Just not conscious of very much.

Suppose we create a mechanical brain that we believe is functionally equivalent to a normal working brain. For those who think science can explain consciousness, how would we scientifically determine whether the mechanical brain is conscious or not? — RogueAI

That's a nice question. Lets add it to the others that haven't been answered.

But they are given general anesthetic for certain surgeries, and we bury them when they are dead because we don't think they will mind -- are no longer 'conscious.' — green flag

I think this is muddled. It's not consciousness that ceases, but the self.

How it is achieved?
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/neurobiology-of-consciousness-study-explained
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-brain-generation-loss-13009/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/tiny-brain-area-could-enable-consciousness
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-brain-mapping-21146/
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-brain-network-17491/
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-conductor-16352/
https://neurosciencenews.com/brain-organization-consciousness-15132/
https://neurosciencenews.com/l5p-neuron-conscious-awareness-14997/
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-brain-patterns-10756/
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-brain-patterns-10698/
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-neuroscience-7189/
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-time-slices-4034/
https://neurosciencenews.com/how-the-brain-loses-and-regains-consciousness/
https://neurosciencenews.com/math-models-brain-state-22789/
https://neurosciencenews.com/eyes-consciousness-22032/
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/june/brain-decoding-complex-thoughts.html
https://aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-a-distraction-from-the-real-one
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121175/ — Nickolasgaspar

Yeah, I'm not going to read all that. I've read things people have suggested before on consciousness and it hasn't helped. Most notably Tononi on the IIT theory, which is just another kind of functionalism. It's interesting but irrelevant. Please would you:

1) Select two of those that you think are most relevant and I'll have a look
2) Summarise in your own words 'How it is achieved'

I imagine much of the dispute regarding whether neuroscience and its philosophical analysis suffices for an explanation concerns whether ( 6 ) should be included in the list. — fdrake

Yes, I think you are probably right about that. From what I recall, Dennett and a few others (forget their names) give accounts of 1-5 and then say "That's it, we're done, there's no extra bits left." And woo-mongers (like me) say "Actually I'm not really talking about 1-5, I'm only really interested in 6, the subjectivity, the first person perspective, the experience, the what it's like to be me, etc."

From my perspective, I'm actually quite happy with a functionalist account of self, your 1-5. For a while now I've made a distinction between self and consciousness:

Self is sufficiently complex to be vague, and have permeable borders. Memories come and go, atoms in our bodies get replaced, values and beliefs change over time, when I stop and the rest of the world starts is a vague matter. Consciousness does not seem to be a vague matter.

In ordinary talk we speak of 'losing consciousness' during sleep or anaesthesia. I think that is strictly inaccurate; what changes is the boundaries of self. When I 'lose consciousness' bert1 ceases to exist for a while as a functional unity in terms of your 1-5. The total consciousness, I suggest, remains. Just as the total mass an energy remains.

Why questions again. — Nickolasgaspar

I can get rid of the 'why'. I think this may be a language barrier. 'Why' isn't always meant in a teleological sense, it often, perhaps usually, meant to elicit an explanation of whatever sort. "Why is the engine making that noise?" for example is not about ascribing intentions to the engine.

So, to rephrase:

"How does brain function necessitate consciousness? What is it about brain function that means it can't happen without consciousness also happening?"

Thanks fdrake that's really good. Lots there to chew on. I'll respond in detail when I get a mo.

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

This is a great question, and I'm sorry to say I can't even give you an example bare-bones answer. Absolutely no idea.

@apokrisis suggested a switcheroo, which was quite interesting, basically saying that the burden of proof not on the neuroscientist to say why some or their function of the brain is consciousness, but on the neuro-skeptic to say why it isn't.

If we had a much more sophisticated and intelligent cognitive system, we could discover how it is that brains produce experience. But we don't, so we are going to remain puzzled about how this phenomenon could ever arise from such an organ. — Manuel

Are you sympathetic with Colin McGinn then? Consciousness is in principle comprehensible, but not by us at the moment? Is this because we lack the concepts we need, perhaps? Perhaps we have mental concepts and physical concepts, but we lack a third kind that relate the two?

I was just wondering if someone has some kind of arguments to help answer that question because I've been thinking about it but haven't got far. — TheMadMan

Yes it's interesting. I think it's a genuine hard problem for pure idealists. In fact it's much easier to see the hard problem when you try to derive the physical from the non-physical. I have thought a bit about non-vague concepts and how they relate to fundamental properties. A number of philosophers perceive that the concept of consciousness is not vague (but that is not intuitive to many). The idea is that there is no intermediate step between x being conscious and x not being conscious. It's easier to see in the case of spatiality. I'm not a mathematician, but intuitively it's hard to conceive of space emerging from non-space: adding millions of 0inch lengths doesn't get you a length. There seems to be no intermediate step in-between non-spatiality and spatiality. I don't know if vagueness is essential to emergence or not, but they do seem to go together naturally. And conversely, there does seem to be a relationship between what is fundamental and what is not vague. Just conceptually, it seems easy and natural to think that both spatiality and consciousness are fundamental properties, and one could not emerge from the other. Neither admit of degree and complexity that would allow for borderline cases.

EDIT: I don't think I've explained that well.

Of course I am! I am pointing out a huge error in the OP! — Nickolasgaspar

There is no error in the OP. It's not making a claim about the world. It's a hypothetical. If anything it's a challenge to those who think consciousness is fundamental, a project I would have thought you would approve of.

At least someone gets it. — TheMadMan

Drives me up the fucking wall. It's not complicated is it? It's a good OP, interesting question. I don't have much more to say on the subject unfortunately, so I should probably shut the fuck up as well.

Walking is what legs do just as minding (i.e. "consciousness") is what a sufficiently intact & self-reflexive CNS interacting with its dynamic environment does. No legs, no walking. No embodied cognition, no minding (i.e. "consciousness"). — 180 Proof

Yes, I suspect TheMadMan understood your point the first time you made it. Would you like to answer his question?

The OP isn't addressed to you. It is addressed to people who think consciousness is more fundamental than matter and asks how matter can emerge from consciousness. If you want to talk about how we are all engaging in pseudophilosophy, I suggest you start a thread about it. There are plenty of other threads when it might be more on topic to go on about pseudophilosophy. If this thread was arguing for the view that consciousness is fundamental, then fair game. But it isn't. It asks us to assume that (rationally or not) and proceed to enquire how matter could emerge. That's the subject of the thread, and you are not engaging with it. Twiggez-vous?

In all 3 questions the answer "because it does" is adequate. — Nickolasgaspar

No it isn't

thats a fallacy — Nickolasgaspar

No it isn't.

ARAS state of awareness and alert/ stimuli arrive as signals/ the Central lateral thalamus share them to other areas specialized in Symbolic language, Memory/expeirence/ pattern recognition/ reasoning etc and the feedback enables our conscious content to emerge — Nickolasgaspar

No it doesn't

Consciousness is a testable, quantifiable mental ability — Nickolasgaspar

No it isn't.

Both are a great example on how pseudo philosophy can derail our philosophical inquiry. — Nickolasgaspar

No they aren't!

Fab, I've fixed all your errors Nick and we can move on. No need to thank me.

Correct , the diversity of properties emerging from different arrangements of matter is the amazing thing. Asking "why" this is possible its like a kid asking his mum ....why the sky is blue as if there is a purpose behind it. — Nickolasgaspar

'Hard problems' ,of the kind that Chalmers referred to, are not about 'why' in the teleological sense. They are about how. How is it that consciousness can emerge from non-conscious systems? How could a material world arise from consciousness? I think both of these are insoluble, and we need more than one fundamental property.