An elephant on your work desk would initially cause you surprise. Your initial reaction would be emotional. This needs to be taken into account. Emotion is present in every experience, and thought. Neither of you have taken this into account. This is the hard problem. :smile:

So it’s the combination of reason and observation that is powerful. Reason alone is blind, and observation alone is meaningless. — Olivier5

A model that only accepts concurrence between reason and observation should work well enough to save the day. — TheMadFool

This would be ok for a description of a philosophical zombie, but real people have emotions.

Wouldn't surprise be your immediate reaction? The Bayesian Brain theory predicts that it would.

You can’t make sense of anything without a little priming of the conceptual pump. We are born with an innate natural logic that allows us to think about our observations and draw lessons from them, as well as with a capacity to model a Euclidian space (which is why non-Euclidian geometries are counter-intuitive). We are also born with hard-wired instincts and tropisms, just like any other animal species: we like certain things (eg the taste of honey) and dislike others (the sight of blood) innately. — Olivier5

I would agree, and would add that we are born with emotion - the essential ingredient of experience!
It seems DNA information contributes substantially to our knowledge.

He thought that asceticism was the highest form of repose against Will's ceaseless impetus. — schopenhauer1

This is interesting. If will provides impetus, then what provides impetus to will?

It isn't possible to 'live in the moment' as if 'a moment' were an object we could enter, — Pam Seeback

What I meant was that a mental state of intense concentration on the present moment, excludes thought of other moments. But you seem to be referring to something else that I do not quite understand. Perhaps you could elaborate a little? I'm not sure we are awareness, I would have said quite the opposite. :smile:

Schopenhauer had a saying about not being able to just be, and if so, very temporary. That is part of his idea of necessary suffering. — schopenhauer1

Perhaps Schopenhauer would have benefited from an understanding of mindfulness? :smile:

All kidding aside , it is an interesting topic in that total awareness of the moment excludes awareness of other moments, and it is pleasant unless you are already in physical pain.

I imagine many animals would exist something like this.

I don't think living in the moment applies when doing many things in life. Quite the opposite. — schopenhauer1

I totally agree, and think perhaps this is why the thoughtless but experienced moment is so pleasant.

"Living in the moment" doesn't have to automatically exclude any and all notion of planning, preparation, and long term goals. Does it? For many I suppose. Why do you have long term goals and aspirations anyway? So either you or another can more freely live in the moment. Is this not correct? — Outlander

:up:

I do not mean to give the impression that I live every moment without thought - LOL!
But when its possible, I've learnt to enjoy the moment.

Wow that is quite a list - brilliant!

I try to take the eastern approach and live in the moment as much as possible.
The moment, with no regrets of the past and no worries of the future, is always pleasant.
It seems that the moments that are not pleasant are the ones not lived in the moment.
Have you thought about this?

As is obvious from the variety of responses to the OP, reality is a variable mental construct.

My approach is to try to understand it from the point of view of consciousness.

Seems to be a problem here, involving taking into account what we do not know... — Banno

Exactly. If we accept dark matter and energy as something real, then we are aware of about 15% of the universe.

Have you ever played Age of Empires where you start with a dark map?

Yeah, we do. It consists of chairs, dogs, rocks, mad presidents... stuff like that. — Banno

Your reality may well consist of things like that. Mine also takes into account the nature of the universe.

We do not know the nature of reality. There is simply not enough information to draw a conclusion.But not being one to allow such trifling consideration to get in the way of a bold statement:

I would say reality is created when emotion agrees with reason - at that point we have an experience - which we take to be real.

Only nothing can exist on its own. Everything else exists relative to something - including ideas.

So your assertion for ideas :"They don’t need any substrate at all; they just exist." is incorrect, as they cannot exist on their own - only nothing can exist on its own!
— Pop

You have still not given any justification of this assumption. Moreover, while I also think that everything, including ideas and the other abstract objects, needs something to explain its existence, that something isn’t any individual mind, but likely the all-encompassing godly Hyge (Nous, Mind) and ultimately Oneness, the or-principle (first principle) which gives each abstract entity its wist (essence). — Tristan L

There is a vast difference in what can exist in mind and what can exist in the real world.

Basic relational theory states that something can exist only in relation to something else.

Thanks for the chat, and good luck.

A consciousness has to create the ideas, otherwise what is the substrate that they exist on?
— Pop

They don’t need any substrate at all; they just exist.
— Tristan L

Really? What substrate do your ideas exist on? — Pop

— Pop

What you call “Tristan’s ideas” are actually mental instances of ideas, and these exist in my consciousness.— Tristan L

Exactly.Tristan's mental instances of ideas are grounded in Tristan's consciousness, and nowhere else.If they were not they could not exist. Where did they exist before there was Tristan, or 10,000 years ago? - Nowhere!

Only nothing can exist on its own. Everything else exists relative to something - including ideas.

So your assertion for ideas :"They don’t need any substrate at all; they just exist." is incorrect, as they cannot exist on their own - only nothing can exist on its own!

Numbers and abstract concepts exist relative to human consciousness.They are expressions of human consciousness. They are inextricably linked, and evolve together. Before there were people they did not exist!
When Human consciousness was little different to primate consciousness, they did not exist - there was no substrate for them to exist on!

The overarching question I start with in the OP is whether creativity requires nondeterminism. My answer is that it does not, but instead requires a certain kind of pattern of exploration or mapping of the abstract space of possibilities in relation to already known possibilities; a process that could be deterministically carried out, but by a different algorithm than just iterating through every possibility in order. (Or randomly picking them out in no order). — Pfhorrest

It seems what you are asking is what is creativity?
The short answer is that consciousness is creativity. The long answer is a theory of consciousness. :sad:
The interesting answer is that in art there exists an X factor. It is given as the difference in what one sets out to create ( the idea ), and what one actually creates. There is always a difference - sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. Sometimes it steers the work completely off course such that what is created is completely different to what one originally intended. To beat this sucker, sometimes artists have no original intention, but there is definitely an element of randomness that creeps in - entropy? The future being probabilistic? - who knows? The process of creating art, and I imagine in all creation, is one of trying to maintain order in the face of disorder - just like in biology, just like in consciousness. Creativity is a struggle - just like ordinary life. Who can predict that they will be here tomorrow? Who can predict that they will actualize an idea? Nobody. So the possibility has to be proven, through creation, before one can say that it truly existed.

Quite the contrary: In order for someone to come up with an idea, it must actually always have been possible that someone could someday come up with the idea. The actually existing possibility of finding the idea must necessarily fore-exist any and every actual coming-up with the idea, for if it wasn’t possible to come up with the idea, how could anyone find it? — Tristan L

You seem to think ideas exist in the ether, and that they are not tied to a consciousness ground, and not subject to evolutionary principles.

You seem to be arguing that cave men could have flown to the moon?

A consciousness has to create the ideas, otherwise what is the substrate that they exist on?
— Pop

They don’t need any substrate at all; they just exist. — Tristan L

Really? What substrate do your ideas exist on?

Ideas can only exist relative to a consciousness.
— Pop

That is an unwarranted assumption. In fact, it’s even false, as I have already shown in this thread at length. Can you back your claim up? — Tristan L

Human ideas exist on a substrate of human consciousness.They are shared via a collective consciousness know as culture. Human ideas and human consciousness evolved together - inextricably linked - ideas are an expression of human consciousness!

Today's consciousness is not applicable to cave men, so the ideas of today are not possibilities for them, they are impossibilities.

For an idea to exist it must exist somewhere - If "they just exist", where do they just exist?

Nothing just exists, everything exists relative to something.

More on how art and consciousness are linked can be found here

The notion that all ideas have always existed as actual possibilities is illogical. Ideas can only exist relative to a consciousness. A consciousness has to create the ideas, otherwise what is the substrate that they exist on?

Creativity: Random or deterministic? Invention or discovery?

Discovery suggests the absence of creativity, and this is incoherent as something must cause another thing to exist. Something must be created before it can be discovered.

A discovery cannot be made without consciousness – by something that is not conscious, and consciousness is a creative process absolutely! Like the tree in the forest, things do not exist until we become conscious of them, and in the process of becoming conscious of them, we subject them to a creative process - we create them in a certain light – consistent with our consciousness.

Thus things cannot be discovered until they are subjected to a consciousness process, and when they are subjected to such a process they are created in a certain light.




Art as well as all matter is created.
In the early universe information entangled energy to create matter. Subsequent to this event, infinite possibility no longer existed, and the causal chain follows from here, at every juncture choices are made and the breadth of possibility is reduced, until we are where we are today.

For art to be produced matter has to be entangled by a consciousness. – we have no experience of art that does not follow this rule. It is a process and choices are made along the way, thus reducing the subsequent possibilities until finally no more possibilities exist, other then the actuality that is the work.

EDIT:

A possibility is something that may exist, but before it can exist it has to be created. So it is not until something is created that you can definitely say it existed as a possibility.

So, it seems, not that everything is determined, but that everything becomes determined through our actions - through creativity.

Logic (i.e. sound inferential reasoning) to start. We also can - must - trust experience, but within limits. — 180 Proof

We have to start with experience - the emotional aspect of consciousness - as that is what creates our consciousness - what distinguishes us from zombies. Of course it should be balanced and fortified with reason.

Sorry to be a pedant, but its a reasonably important distinction.

I have a direct experience, that's an ultimate proof.
— Eugen
Floats your lil rowboat but not mine. I'm interested in the grounds for doubt or belief, not "proof" (ultimate or otherwise). :roll: — 180 Proof

If we cant trust experience, then what can we trust?

The hard problem is understood by some precisely so that progress can't be made (so that nothing could count as progress.) — Yellow Horse

I would agree with this, there is a cultural aversion,and a tradition of non engagement. to engage at all is in some ways antisocial.

'I demand an objective explanation for stuff that only I have access to or am.' — Yellow Horse

I believe it is possible to create a rough sketch of a philosophical consciousness. But ultimately consciousness is something created from DNA, experience, and perspective, so personal.Only you can understand your own personal consciousness as only you have full access to it.

I'd argue toward a philosophical explanation of consciousness. The word 'materialistic' tends to mislead people into equally useless assumptions (of ineffable stuff we can't be objective about). — Yellow Horse

There are many problems.
Another word for consciousness, though not entirely accurate, is sanity.
What if we made progress in our understanding of consciousness such that it caused a shift in our sanity? What if this shift caused a misalignment with the sanity of our family, friends, and culture?
Would you still go there?

On the other hand, is the sanity of our culture functional or dysfunctional?

Except that rocks are not conscious. — Banno

This is something that consciousness will decide! :cool:

Its so good to see so much interest in consciousness.

My 2 cents worth:

An instance of consciousness leads to the next instance of consciousness, but also time, according to Einstein is an illusion, what we really have is change. So consciousness orients us in the change. Consciousness exists on a spectrum – it fluctuates throughout the day, is focal, and multifocal, can disassociate– can split into two and reflect on itself, sleep is a sort of suspended consciousness, not fully unconscious like anesthesia.

Consciousness develops over a lifetime in response to more information. It is self learning and programming and thus creative as the information at hand is always less then perfect, yet consciousness must integrate it into a reality.

It is best characterized as a state of entangled,integrated and unified information and emotion. The emotion is primary, and dominant, and thoughts can be characterized as bundles of emotion wrapped up in reason – often tenuously so.

Consciousness = thought + emotion = experience

Linguistics places a limitation on communication, and we have two similar words for consciousness.
1: consciousness: highlights the reasoned awareness aspect.
2: experience: highlights the emotional effect

Consciousness can be swapped out with experience in any sentence to gain a slightly different perspective on what is being said. You can play with this in the posts of this thread.

Re the OP, consciousness and life must have emerged together as life needs impetus and this is what emotional consciousness provides. This is what a P.Zombie lacks.

Finally, when you speak of consciousness what you are describing is yourself!

From Wikipedia:

In The Sane Society, published in 1955, psychologist Erich Fromm proposed that not just individuals, but entire societies "may be lacking in sanity." Fromm argued that one of the most deceptive features of social life involves "consensual validation":[6]

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth... Just as there is a folie à deux there is a folie à millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.[7]

The obvious answer to the OP is that we are part of the fabric of the universe!

So what is most conscious in the universe?

edit: Is a rock a part of the universe?

I dont get it?

what dose consciousness look like?

If we knew we could tell if a rock is conscious!

Conflating consciousness with experience — Banno

This part is relevant to your original question, i dont know what the rest is all about.

I did go to some trouble to explain this. I'll try again:

Every experience is a conscious one. Every state of consciousness must be experienced.
Consciousness and experience are inseparable - you cannot have one without the other.

When we speak of consciousness we usually think of reasoned awareness.
When we speak of experience we usually think of emotional awareness.

Seems to me you are conflating different things, including consciousness, experience, conscience, awareness, self-awareness... — Banno

What is conflated?

Point out how?

I think consciousness exists in all living creatures on a spectrum. They experience a poke in the chops, in a similar way that we do. They feel pain recoil from it, and if they can they move away.

Experience truly is consciousness. We experience consciousness. We have a conscious experience.We cannot have an unconscious experience, nor an unexperienced consciousness.

In humanity, consciousness is somthing that develops over a lifetime. In early teens we become aware of self, but do we ever become self aware? To be truly self aware we have to understand our own consciousness – not just have knowledge of it, and this is a tough ask. Yet who would state that somebody experiences less because they are less aware? Who would state children experience less then adults? How can we know other creatures have less of an experience then we do?

One's reflexes remain functional even when one is asleep. It's how we tell the unconscious from the dead. You would count reflex as a form of conciseness? — Banno

Sleep is a form of suspended consciousness, not fully unconscious, as in anesthesia.
Reflex is a single movement. You cant apply that argument to the above video. That is a complex purposeful sequence of actions.

The below video shows a white blood cell chasing bacteria, note the footage is in a petrie dish - out of body no brains involved. 2min long.

.

What is it that would allow you to conclude that a Jellyfish is conscious? What observation? — Banno

The video below is 10min long. worth a look. A eukaryotic cell is poked with a human hair. Initially it recoils. When that dose not work it decides to get out of there. it finds a new suitable environment, and proceeds to continue life. In the process it shows awareness of pain, decision making, memory - it dose not return to the same place.

I would hypothesize it is a qualia based consciousness. Qualia is polar / directional ( repelled from pain and attracted to pleasure). It is enough for consciousness. I would further hypothesize that qualia is still the dominant quantity of human consciousness. Qualia is necessary for consciousness. Reason is not. Reason alone creates a zombie.

A definition is an accurate description of something in an indivisible way.
It dose not necessarily confer understanding, as many things are simply beyond understanding.

Yes it makes sense, and it is interesting work.
My instinct is that you would capture a larger audience by simplifying it a little. There is an enormous amount of information in large sentences and paragraphs - difficult to take in in one chunk.
Just something you might reconsider - modern fine art became completely abstract - Piet Mondrian - about 1920. The progression was expressionism and then abstract expressionism - as per your narrative.

Thanks for the link. I’m familiar with Tononi, but I’ll check out the other two.

I like Roger Penrose and co cellular microtubule proposition. If this pans out to be true then it will be the case that entangled and integrated quantum states give rise to consciousness.
One entangled and integrated quantum state gives rise to a future entangled and integrated quantum state. But we would be back at the same point - dose an entangled and integrated quantum state have free will? But at least we are not introspecting!

Thumbs up - my emoticons don't work.

There would be ways to do it for sure, but where would a materialist end up philosophically if they tried? What do you think?

Dealing with consciousness is exceedingly difficult, even for an idealist, but for a materialist maybe impossible.

Materialism is historically rooted in the aversion of consciousness. This was the domain of the soul, and the turf of the clergy, so off limits to anybody with a sense of self preservation.

Materialists tend to focus on finding a physical source of consciousness – seemingly hoping that they can deal with consciousness outside of personal conscious experience – Ha ha ha – good luck with that one!!

That is impossible! The only way to deal with consciousness is through personal introspection, as each consciousness is absolutely unique! Each consciousness is personally constructed absolutely – even if two people share the same DNA, and share the same experience, they must occupy a different space – and so posses a different consciousness, in the absolute sense. When two people share the same DNA, experience and space – they are the same person! The only way that consciousness exists is in the particular, and we all have a particular consciousness – our own particular consciousness. This is the only one we have access to, and the only one we are really interested in, as this is the one that creates our personal reality!


However this is where dealing with consciousness gets prickly. As we all know life can be traumatic. The simplest and most immediate way to deal with trauma is to suppress and deny it. To deal with consciousness however, you have to deal with all the nitty gritty that forms it, including the things that you would rather not deal with. And some people cannot, or choose not to, and this has to be respected, but it can result in the suppression and denial of consciousness outright.

There are still other problems besides.....I could go on for some time.

The result is a cultural aversion and blindness around the area of consciousness.

But for a philosopher this is an unacceptable situation. I like to think we partake in life through the prism of our consciousness – I don’t see how anybody can argue with this, or get around it. Ultimately this has to be dealt with, as consciousness is there prime centre in absolutely every philosophical consideration.

It is one of the possibilities. If consciousness is constantly reconstructed

Our belief in a continuing identical self over a lifetime is an illusion. In praise of nihilism.
No identity overtime means no consciousness over time. — Wheatley

If this is correct then it will be impossible to find physical form for consciousness. As it will always be something different in the future. No enduring physical state.