But Science has no Theory, Hypothesis or even a Speculation about how Consciousness could be in the Neurons — SteveKlinko
In response I said "That is not true." In order to justify that statement, all I have to show is that "science" has theories, hypotheses, and speculation about it. I propose all I have to do is show that at least one reputable scientist has. The book I read is "The Feeling of What happens," by Antonio Damasio. Whether or not he is correct in what he thinks, he is a reputable scientist with theories, hypotheses, and speculations. It is my understanding he is not the only one. Again, I am not qualified to give a scientific review of the book, but Damasio's ideas seemed plausible. — T Clark

Damasio says things like "A feeling arises when the organism becomes aware of the changes it is experiencing as a result of external or internal stimuli". That's no Explanation for the Feeling itself. If we ask the question: "How does Neural Activity produce the Experience of Redness?, Damasio has no answer.

25 years ago, I was prepared to go into philosophy graduate school. A philo of science professor talked me out of it. His argument was essentially: all the good stuff has already been thought of. You'll spend your days writing papers on meaningless trivialities until you get tenure.

I think he was right. The original stuff has already been thought of. There's been too many smart people for anyone to have missed anything fundamental by now. We need new perspectives — RogueAI

I scanned responses to this briefly and might have missed if someone had mentioned this: Around the turn of the century (1900) a patent office worker made the comment that he thought he'd be out of work soon because it seemed like everything that was ever going to be invented had already been invented. Even if this story is just a myth I think it makes a good point about nearsighted thinking.

Yes, but you're encouraging a fair deal of witting and unwitting dualistic woo. — bongo fury

If you think Dualism is Woo then you must be a Physical Monist (Physicalist) or a Spiritual Monist (Spiritualist). In either case you would be promoting the Oneness of everything. For the Phyisicalist everything is Physical and for them there is no Conscious aspect to the Universe. If you are a Spiritualist then you think everything is Consciousness and there is in fact no Physical aspect to the Universe. Neither of these Oneness beliefs make sense in the manifest Universe that we live in. There is clearly a Physical part of the Universe with all it's Physical Phenomena and there is clearly a Consciousness part of the Universe with all its Conscious Phenomena. I think the Oneness premise is Woo.

the problem with the common interpretation of 'idealism' is that it tries to conceive of mind as something objectively existent. But the mind is not an object of perception, rather 'that which perceives'. You can't get behind 'it' or outside 'it' to see what 'it' is, but such is the habit of 'objectivism' that this is the only way we can consider the matter. This is what leads to the typical 'ghost in the machine' criticism of Cartesian dualism.

Looked at this way, the whole 'problem of consciousness' arises from a flawed perspective, specifically, that of treating the subjective reality of experience as something objective. Mind is not objectively existent, but (as Husserl points out in his critique of naturalism) it is what discloses or reveals anything objective whatever; it is the condition or foundation of objective knowledge, while itself not being an object of knowledge.

If you can see that, you save yourself a lot of needless bother — Wayfarer

I believe you are saying that the Flowed Perspective is thinking that there even is such a thing as Consciousness. If I could only ignore myself then everything would become clear to me. Ok I'll try that ... Sorry that didn't work. I need a better Premise than that.

Science has tried in vain for a hundred years to figure this out. — SteveKlinko
True, but probably because the private realm is near impossible to get at from the public realm.

I'm not sure it helps to move the mysterious explanatory gap to another processor with special power, as there is still the gap.

Some have it that the dispositions underlying reality are occasions of experience, yet, our instruments seem to detect waves, as ubiquitous in nature even. — PoeticUniverse

This is because the Gap might more specifically be a Processing Gap rather than being a general Explanatory Gap.

The Scientific and Physicalist view is that Consciousness is somehow located in the Neurons. It is a reasonable assumption given that Conscious Activity is Correlated with Neural Activity. But Science has no Theory, Hypothesis or even a Speculation about how Consciousness could be in the Neurons. — SteveKlinko
This is not true. There is a well-developed branch of cognitive science which studies the biological and neurological basis of consciousness. They have developed models that describe plausible mechanisms for the manifestation of consciousness. — T Clark

They study the Neural Correlates of Consciousness. They have no idea How something like the Experience of Redness happens.

Science has not been able to show for example, how something like the Experience of Redness is some kind of effect of Neural Activity. In fact, the more you think about the Redness Experience and then think about Neural Activity, the less likely it seems that the Redness Experience is actually some sort of Neural Activity. Science has tried in vain for a hundred years to figure this out. If the Experience of Redness actually was in the Neurons, Science would have had a lot to say about it by now. Something has got to be wrong with their perspective on the problem. — SteveKlinko
This is a false problem caused by an unwillingness or inability to imagine consciousness as just another process. I can certainly understand that. It takes a conceptual leap and a realization that our precious sense of self is nothing special. People, including scientists, used to believe that biological life could never arise out of physical mechanisms. They sometimes hypothesized undetectable vital forces that brought matter to life. Consciousness is not different. There is not hard problem of consciousness, just a lack of awareness. — T Clark

Biological Life is made out of matter so it is only Logical that it arose from Physical Processes. Sit down, relax, and think more Deeply about the Redness itself, as a thing in itself. After that you might begin to understand the magnitude of the Gap that there is between anything we know about Neurons and the Experience of Redness. Science does not know how the Redness can come from Neural Activity. I can tell by this post that you really do not understand the Hard Problem of Consciousness.

The Inter Mind Model (http://TheInterMind.com) can accommodate Consciousness as being in the Neurons, but it can also accommodate other concepts of Consciousness. The Inter Mind Model is structurally a Connection Model, in the sense that the Physical Mind (PM) is connected to the Inter Mind (IM) which is connected to the Conscious Mind (CM). These Connections might be conceptual where all three Minds are actually in the Neurons. But these Connections might have more reality to them where the PM, the IM, and the CM are separate things. — SteveKlinko
I did read the "Inter Mind Model" section of the article you linked. I didn't find it convincing and I didn't see any evidence for the IM concept — T Clark

Thank You for reading the article. The Arguments sections that follow provide the evidence.

I think your perspective is interesting. Would you say the The Inter Mind Model is basically idealism? Do you feel that imagining something like a CM (Conscious Mind) existing in CSc (Conscious Space) a violation of Ochamm's Razor? In my opinion, it would appear that although you may have great explanatory power with this theory, it seems to be adding unwarranted elements in order to resolve some of the difficulty which is presented in considering consciousness and how it relates to "physical" reality. — rlclauer

Some say Idealism means Monism and some say it means Dualism. Idealism is one of those terms that can be twisted around to mean various different things. I say that there is a separate Physical World and a separate Conscious World that seems to exist. I think I am a Dualist. Occam's Razor is not a real law of Logic or Science. If anything it is a Folk Law. Maybe Consciousness is more complicated than people want it to be.

I rather like the idea of surrounding consciousness to show that it comes from the brain (stopped by faints, blows to the head, anesthesia) and thus is a brain process, which tells us that the brain makes it, the brain having evolved consciousness as a way of perceiving its own results to best symbolically via qualia to both remember it for far off future reference and also for an immediate reference/broadcast for more areas of the brain to get notified and continue on with it, this startling (to us) unique internal language being what works for higher and higher brain modules more and more utilizing symbols. I suppose this is materialism. — PoeticUniverse

If instead of generating Consciousness, the Brain (Neural Activity) is able to Connect with some sort of Conscious Space where Consciousness resides then the problem of Faints, Blows, and Anesthesia, can be viewed as a loss of Connection to Consciousness and not a loss of actual Consciousness.

In a talk between Chalmers and Dennett on the theme of possible minds and AI, Chalmers introduces the concept of the space of all possible minds. "Think about the space of possible minds. It’s absolutely vast, all the minds there ever have been, will be, or could be. Starting with actual minds, you might think there are a lot of actual minds. There have been a hundred billion or so humans with minds of their own. Some pretty amazing minds have been in there: Confucius, Isaac Newton, Jane Austin, Pablo Picasso, Martin Luther King, on it goes. A lot of amazing minds. But still, those hundred billion minds put together [span] just the tiniest corner of the space of possible minds." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHN_o6RqrHY, 5:06)

With the exception of this example, I haven't been able to find any discourse on the subject of possible minds or possible conscious experiences. If you know of any literature on this subject it would help me tremendously if you would point me to it.

The reason I'm asking is that I'm considering writing a paper for a phd program application on the subject. Part of the project I've formulated so far is to attempt to make conclusions about the set of all possible conscious experiences (or else answer why such conclusions cannot be drawn at this time), and to analyze whether those conclusions can give us any constraints on theories of consciousness. I'm evaluating the prospects of using an approach described in Chalmers' Two Dimensional Argument against materialism of "reason[ing] from epistemic premises to modal conclusions (about necessity and possibility), and from there to ontological conclusions." I'm wondering, for example, whether there is a way to get from "it is inconceivable that X" to "'conceiving of X' is not an element of the set of all possible conscious experiences". If you have any insight into this please do share. I appreciate it. — Bearden

Some thoughts on Conscious Space, which may be related to the Space of Possible Minds, can be found at: http://TheInterMind.com

It is a good exercise to try to find the most basic building blocks of the Universe. Science has traced it back to Energy, but you are Speculating that Spirit or what I would call Consciousness is a more fundamental building block. I don't see how you make Energy from Consciousness, but it is a good Speculation. There's nothing wrong with Speculation. You don't need to have all the answers to have a Speculative Insight. Maybe just the thought that Energy and thus Matter are actually made out of Consciousness will inspire some other Mind to discover the answer. By the way, when it comes to Consciousness all we have is Speculation because nobody really has the first clue.

The question is: How is Neural Activity Mapped to the Conscious Experience? There is a huge Explanatory Gap involved in any kind of Mapping or measurement of Neural Correlates. — SteveKlinko
There is, but better mapping/measurements could lead us to clues and reduce the explanatory gap. Assuming this is impossible is assuming that our a priori arguments for the hard problem are bullet proof. And history isn't kind to that sort of certainty. — Marchesk

Maybe more mapping will inspire clues to look in new directions. But the mapping in and of itself does not bring us closer to bridging the Explanatory Gap. Lets say Science has mapped every Neuron to some sort of Conscious Experience. How does that get rid of the Gap? We have known for a Hundred years that there are mappings from Neural Activity to Conscious Experience. But the magnitude of the Gap remained about the same over those Hundred years.

But you don't have to map everything to understand the Gap Problem. Just take one example of Conscious Experience and study it. I like to study the Gap between the Mapping of Neural Activity for Red and the Experience of Redness. There is a huge Explanatory Gap in between the Neural Activity and the Experience in this case. No amount of other kinds of Mapping closes this particular Gap to any degree. If Science can solve just one particular Gap it will solve all the other Gaps in one giant leap of discovery.

Neuroscientist Anil Seth discusses what he calls the real problem of consciousness in this Philosophy Bites podcast: https://philosophybites.com/2017/07/anil-seth-on-the-real-problem-of-consciousness.html

He defines the real problem as building explanatory bridges between brain mechanisms and phenemonal descriptions. Neurophenomenology is this mapping between rich conscious descriptions and brain processes. It allows for a chipping away at the explanatory gap between the hard problem and neuroscience, which may end up suggesting the cause and not just an in-depth correlation.
— Marchesk

Mappings are useful. But no amount of Mapping gets us any closer to solving the Hard Problem. More Mapping does not chip away at the Hard Problem. This is all just more Neural Correlates of Consciousness. Science has known for a hundred years that Neural Activity leads to Conscious Activity. This is nothing new. The question is: How is Neural Activity Mapped to the Conscious Experience? There is a huge Explanatory Gap involved in any kind of Mapping or measurement of Neural Correlates.

The question about whether Data has Consciousness or not cannot be answered at this time. We don't even know what our own Consciousness is. I think when we come to understand what our Consciousness is then we will understand all Consciousness. I suspect that there is no Harder Problem, and there is only the original Hard Problem. I have to further Speculate that Science will one day be expanded to be able to deal with Consciousness. It will probably take new ways of thinking.

The problem with the Physicalist/Materialist position is that they assume Science has discovered everything about the Universe that it will ever will, as far as the big Categories of Phenomena are concerned. They of course understand that there are holes in even the known big Categories of Phenomena. But at least the Categories themselves have been discovered and are known.

I would put Consciousness and in particular Conscious Experience into a new big Category of Phenomena. We know Conscious Experience already exists as a known Phenomenon that happens in the Universe. I'm going to say that the Category of Conscious Phenomena is a Category of Scientific knowledge because we know it exists.

So the Problem comes down to the fact that there can be an Event happening in the Material Neural Activity Category that affects the Conscious Experience Activity in the Conscious Phenomena Category. These are two Scientific Categories of Phenomena with one Category affecting the other. The point is that Conscious Experience already is part of Science, it's just that Science does not have any good Explanations for it yet. Also, Science needs to at least recognize that there is a big Scientific Category of Phenomena that needs an Explanation.

I think a good start would be to Hypothesize that there is some sort of Conscious Space that exists in the Universe where Conscious Phenomena happens. Conscious Space would not be like any kind of Physical Space. First of all it would be dimensionless. It would be where the Redness of Red happens. It would be where the Standard Tone C happens. It would be where Pain happens. Human Reason and Sensibleness demands that this Conscious Space must exist. If you do not assume a Conscious Space then the Phenomena of Conscious Experience still floats separate from the Material Neural Activity out in some other Realm of Reality. I just like to nail down this Reality a little better.

conscious experience might just be complex information processing (owed to complex neural systems/activity).[/quote]

They believe that the Neural Activity is sufficient for us to move around in the world without bumping into things. This is insane denial of the obvious purpose for Visual Consciousness. The Conscious Visual experience is the thing that allows us to move around in the world. Neural Activity is not enough. We would be blind without the Conscious Visual experience. The Conscious Visual experience contains vast amounts of information about the external world all packed up into a single thing. — SteveKlinko
If I did not have the Conscious Visual experience I would not be able to pick up my coffee mug, or at least it would be much more difficult with just Neural Activity. — SteveKlinko
I guess I pressed for more explanation on these claims. I am not sure that they simply don't amount to the mere assertion that there is a difference between a conscious being, and one with "mere neural activity".

So: why would it be more difficult for an unconscious being (neural facts being equal otherwise) to pick up a cup? The response system you suggest is due to consciousness is actually due to our neural, optic, etc., system. We could get the same response output, without the subjective "inner movie" so to speak.

I want to be clear: I take the conscious experience at face-value and I think an explanation is needed. I certainly disagree with more radical naturalists who explain it away as an "illusion". That being said, the conscious experience might just be complex information processing (owed to complex neural systems/activity). — Kornelius

If you study the Visual Areas of the Brain you will discover several things. It does not appear that the Visual Areas are processing the Light information with the goal of creating the integrated Visual Scene that we experience. Rather the Brain seems to deconstruct the image with the goal of detecting elementary properties of the image like lines, edges, motion, and color. There do not seem to be any downstream Visual Areas that are involved with reconstructing the Visual Scene that we experience from all the deconstructed properties that the Brain detects. The only place where there is a good undistorted image is on the Retina of the Eye. The other various stages of processing are highly warped and distorted maps of the retina. The highest stages don't really even map at all. The highest stages seem to be involved in image recognition and the lower stages seem to be for mechanical control of focus and eye convergence. The process of combining the processing results of the various Areas of the Visual system to create the integrated Visual Scene is called Binding. The fact that no one knows how this is accomplished is called the Binding Problem.

The problem with expectations that Consciousness is unnecessary usually is a result of thinking that the Brain does more than it actually does. The Visual Cortex is one stage of the Visual process and the generation of the Conscious Visual Scene is a further processing stage. The integration of the deconstructed elementary properties into the Conscious Visual Scene that we experience is simply not found in the Neurons. You would not be able to move your hand to pick up your coffee cup without that last processing stage. Now that's not to say that it could never be done with Neural Activity. But if it was done with Neural Activity your Brain would probably have to be as big as a House in order to accomplish all the things you can do with the Conscious Visual Image. The Conscious Visual Scene that you Experience combines (or Binds) a great deal of complex things into one integrated thing.

Consciousness is definitely helpful for survival purposes, though, especially when you get to organisms like us, who are relatively complex and who aren't adapted to easily survive to reproduction age without a lot of assistance and without the benefits of being able to learn things (such as things in our environment that are dangerous). — Terrapin Station
This is an extremely interesting claim, and if we could make it precise, it would be very helpful in the debate on Consciousness. I am not well versed in these issues in philosophy of mind and cognitive science generally, but it seems to be a contentious issue whether or not consciousness would be something on which natural selection could operate.

It seems to me that I could picture the entire history of human/ape evolution, without the corresponding emergence of consciousness. Why would consciousness be of assistance to our survival? What type of actions and or responses would a conscious being be able to perform that an unconscious being would not be able to (or would not be able to with the same success)?

This is a genuine question. I have no idea at all. — Kornelius

I had hoped that the original post was an answer to your question. What do you disagree with from that post?

↪SteveKlinko I’m sorry, I don’t understand your point. Perhaps someone else can address it. — I like sushi

Let's try this:

I think Consciousness is the overarching name we give to the topic. To say you are Consciously Aware means you are actually Experiencing some aspect of Consciousness like the Experience of Redness. I think it is possible to gain information about the World at a Subconscious level. So Conscious Awareness is a sub topic of Consciousness and I do differentiate the two.

↪SteveKlinko So are you differentiating conscious awareness from consciousness or not. I posed that question in my first post. — I like sushi

If I talk about the Conscious Experience of the Color Red, for example, I am of course assuming you are Aware of the Experience of the Redness. I don't deal with Subconscious or Unconscious Brain functions. Those are other distinct topics which are interesting but are not what I am talking about..

↪SteveKlinko Your reply makes no sense. Clean up the differentiation between ‘consciousness’ and ‘conscious awareness’ otherwise you’ve just said I am wrong AND right.

Split brain patients also shine a curious light on such instances. It goes without saying that there is a level of consciousness that allows consciously blind people to navigate around obstacles. To claim that they are ‘consciously aware’ is plainly false and/or something far more complex is going on. — I like sushi

You are right that they can slowly move around in a controlled laboratory environment but you are wrong to imply that we don't need the Conscious Visual Experience to move around in the World in general. Or else why would you bring this up? The Conscious Visual Experience is a further processing stage after Neural Processing. If all we had was the Neural Processing we might as well be totally Blind when trying to move around in any kind of Real World situation. The point of this thread is to show the obvious purpose for the Conscious Visual Experience. This thread addresses the people that can't figure out why we have this Conscious Visual Experience. They think that there would be no difference if we did not have it. I think your example does show that we would be greatly handicapped without it.

↪SteveKlinko Your opening statement is wrong. There is clear documented evidence that shows as clear as can be that consciousness is not required to navigate around a room. This is so because there are numerous people who are consciously blind yet they are able to cross a room and avoid all the furniture without any problem.

You could argue that this is still ‘conscious’ but I have a feeling you meant ‘awareness’ when you said ‘conscious’? The term ‘consciousness’ has several applications. Technically speaking when we’re asleep and dreaming we are ‘conscious’ - this being a certain state of neural arousal (excuse my nomenclature!)

I’d also add that various simple organisms sense light yet they’re not conscious. We can create machines that process ‘visual’ information and they are not conscious.

So what do you mean? A brain isn’t necessary in some cases - at least nothing on par with human brains. — I like sushi

These cases of brain damage to the visual system show that these people can maneuver around obstacles slowly. If forced to go fast they cant do it. They are still Experiencing some sort of sensation of bulk objects out there but the details are gone and they are highly handicapped without actual Visual Experiences. They can slowly move around in a controlled environment but would not be able to move around very easily in the Real World outside the laboratory. So you are actually wrong.

Good Discussion. See my comment to your first post.

The point of this Discussion is to propose a reason for Conscious Experience. It is mind boggling that some people still don't think that Consciousness is even necessary. I think my example of the Visual Experience shows that the P-Zombie would be functionally Blind. The Visual Experience is a necessary final stage of processing in order for us to See. Neural Activity is not enough.

What would be the difference between an illusion of consciousness and consciousness, or an illusion of an experience of color, etc. and just an experience of color?

It's not at all clear what the heck the distinction would be. — Terrapin Station

Lets just think about the Redness of the color Red. If you are Experiencing Redness or if you are having an Illusion of Redness, it is still Redness that you are Experiencing. The Illusion still gives you an Experience of Redness. The question is: What is that Redness in the first place regardless of if you want to call it an Illusion or not. Think about Redness as a thing in itself. Redness is a Conscious Phenomenon that is in a whole Category of Phenomena that Science cannot deal with yet. So Redness itself is the thing we need to think more Deeply about. Thinking more Deeply about Redness brings up the 800lb Gorilla in the room called the Conscious Mind.

I don't respond to bedsheet posts. I think I said that early on in this discussion. If you have a real point to make, you can make it with brevity. — Unseen

If that's all you think of that then Ok, Good luck, Bye,

The obvious way out of your dilemma is to include Quantum Mechanical considerations into the operation of your Brain. The Determinism vanishes in a sea of alternate possibilities and outcomes.

I'm at a loss to understand how you arrived at that notion.

I move around based on what the pre-consciousness deems to be worthy noticing and actin on. It also decides what to let me observe and feel. — Unseen

It has been known for a hundred years that Conscious Experience is related to Neural Activity. You think that the only thing you need is pre-conscious Neural Activity in order to See. I think it is obvious that you will not See anything with just Neural Activity. You will need the extra stage of the process which is the Conscious Visual Experience. The Conscious Visual Experience is simply another stage in the processing chain after the pre-conscious Neural Activity. The example I gave about Functional Blindness explains the situation.

You don't just Observe the Conscious Visual Scene that you are Seeing. The Conscious Visual Scene is the thing that you actually use to move around in the World. You are Functionally Blind without the Conscious Visual Experience. It's an essential component in the Visual processing chain.

With regard to the pre-conscious Neural Activity:
It does not appear that the Visual Areas are processing the Light information with the goal of creating the integrated Conscious Light (CL) Scene that we experience. Rather the Brain seems to deconstruct the image with the goal of detecting elementary properties of the image like lines, edges, motion, and color. There do not seem to be any downstream Visual Areas that are involved with reconstructing the CL Scene that we experience from all the deconstructed properties that the Brain detects. The only place where there is a good undistorted image is on the Retina of the Eye. The other various stages of processing are highly warped and distorted maps of the retina. The highest stages don't really even map at all. The highest stages seem to be involved in image recognition and the lower stages seem to be for mechanical control of focus and eye convergence. But we find that there are artifacts from the downstream processing stages that become visible in our CL Scene. For example there are some edge enhancement and shading effects that are generated in V1 that can be experienced in the CL Scene. Also if there is a damaged area in V1 then an equivalent blacked out area will appear in the CL Scene. Similarly if there is damage to the Color areas then the Color experience will be impaired or completely missing. So it seems that whatever is creating the CL Scene must use and be in contact with all the processing stages at the same time. The actual CL Scene is a kind of overlay of all the areas. It seems that the data available at these processing stages are hints as to what the CL Scene should look like. This data must be the input to the Conscious Mind (CM). It seems that there is a lot of processing that has to take place to reintegrate all the Visual Area processing results into the seemingly perfect CL Scene that we experience. There is a Processing Gap. There does not seem to be any areas in the Brain that operate to perform this data reintegration. The Conscious Visual Experience of the Scene is however a reintegrated version of the Visual Area processing results. No one knows how the Brain does this reintegration to produce the Conscious Visual Scene Experience. This is called the Binding Problem of Conscious Experience. There simply are no Brain Areas identified that can do this. The Conscious Visual Experience contains massive amounts of Visual information all combined into that Conscious Visual Scene that we are so used to Seeing.

I move around in the world based on the information that the pre-conscious mind filters to send to the conscious mind... — Unseen

So you are able to move around when there is a Conscious Visual Experience. You seem to be saying that the Pre-Conscious processing is not enough.

I'll go further. It IS gratuitous to have experiences. Our preconscious mind could function without the conscious one. In fact, it does so often. You do a long day of driving, mostly thinking of whatever's going on in your life as you do so. By the time you reach your destination, you got there making, really, very few decisions on a conscious level. — Unseen

Do you really think you are not using your Conscious Visual Experience when you are absentmindedly driving, or are you just not remembering all the driving decisions you made during the trip? Absentminded driving is more about Memory than about "at the moment" Visual Experience. You would not be able to drive absentmindedly or drive with full awareness without the Conscious Visual Experience. You would be Blind without the Conscious Visual Experience.

Individual Cells might not have consciessness. Our desire to procreate is what makes us procreate. A robot is predestined to react how its maker/creator/builder built it IMO. — christian2017

Yes Robots have no Volitional input capability. You cannot create Volition with programs. Rather, we need to make special Volitional connections to Machines to enable Volition.

But consciousness is merely observational. The actual activity that means anything and/or results in anything like actions is pre-conscious and isn't conscious at all. — Unseen

Do you really think you would be able to move around in the World without bumping into things if you had no Conscious Visual Experience? The Visual Experience is a further processing stage that is essential to Sight.

I don't see why humans lacking consciousness (having experiences) couldn't function in the world much as an intelligent robot would. (The zombie terminology confuses the situation, I think.) A human whose brain processes information without consciousness seems entirely possible. — Unseen

I hoped that my previous posts explained why the Neural Processing is not enough. Maybe Brains can evolve that don't need Consciousness but our Brains have evolved to need Consciousness. Consciousness is a further processing stage beyond the Neural Activity. We are effectively Blind without the Conscious Visual Experience. The P-Zombie is a standard Philosophical tool for talking about the necessity of Consciousness.

thats fine. Mostly subjects such as this are conjecture. We can't assume we've hit the point in human history that satisfies our own conception of the threshold of necessary truth. Do you dig me? Any given species is limited by time in my own opinion.

See my profile or click on my name. no wrong answer. — christian2017

I agree that Conjecture and Speculation are all we have with regard to what Consciousness is. Everything is still on the table. Science knows absolutely Nothing about the Phenomenon of Consciousness at this point in time.

One thing that people forget is that the brain operates on particles small than the electron. (Quantum particles). Evolutionary process was not limited to the technologies of the 1800s. — christian2017

If this is a comment on something I said then I don't know which of my posts you are referring to. If it is just a general statement of fact then I agree with sentence #2 but am not quite sure about sentence #1.

This argument involves a strange condition called Functional Blindness where no Neurological deficits can be found in the Brain but nevertheless patients report that they are Blind. The cause of this is a medical mystery but seems to be related to certain types of Psychological problems like depression. No Physiological explanation can be found no matter what type of test is conducted. The Neurons are Firing but the patient is still Blind. It seems almost obvious that the Conscious Experience is necessary for moving around in the World without bumping into things. The Neural Activity is not enough.

The Primacy Of Consciousness:

The Scientific view of Consciousness is that it is some kind of byproduct of Neural Activity in the Brain. Most Scientists believe that Consciousness is not very important and some go so far as to say that it is just an Illusion with no real purpose. Philosophers have invented the Philosophical Zombie as a tool for thinking about Consciousness or the lack of Consciousness. The P-Zombie is supposed to live and interact with the World just like any one else except that it would not be Conscious.

But from the Inter Mind Model (http://theintermind.com) point of view the P-Zombie would be blind and would not be able to interact with the World. The Inter Mind (IM) and the Conscious Mind (CM) are further processing stages that are absolutely necessary for Sight. Neural Activity is not enough. All we know about Seeing is through Conscious experience. We experience the Conscious Light (CL) that's inside us. Take away the CL experience and what's left? Blind Neural Activity is all you have. You will not See anything. The Primacy of the CL experience for Sight is undeniable, and the same is true for every other Conscious experience that you have. You don't know anything about the Physical World except that which you obtain through your own internal Conscious experiences.

Scientists need to find a way to understand and study Consciousness. They have to stop hiding their inability to study Consciousness by trying to minimize its importance. The Primacy of Consciousness must be understood.

When I reach for my coffee mug I have a Conscious Visual experience where I See my hand moving toward the coffee mug. If My hand is off track I sense this in the Conscious Visual experience and adjust the movement of my hand. If I did not have the Conscious Visual experience I would not be able to pick up my coffee mug, or at least it would be much more difficult with just Neural Activity. So the Conscious Visual experience is just Data that helps us interact with the world. This Conscious Visual Data is absolutely necessary for us to function. Similar arguments can be made for the Conscious Auditory experience, the Conscious Smell experience, the Conscious Taste experience, and the Conscious Touch experience. All these experiences are just a type of Data that our Conscious Minds can analyze.

I think Evolution could be heavily guided by Conscious Mind (CM) sensations. Pain will make an Organism or Animal do almost anything to get rid of it. Animal Evolution might not even work without Pain. Pain is central to our existence today. Pain is perfectly bad. We (every organism on the planet) hate Pain. The misconception that people have is that the firing of Neurons is the Pain. But this is only Neural Pain and is not Conscious Pain. A Neuron is an electro chemical thing. Let’s hook a battery through a switch to a light bulb. You could instruct that whenever the switch is closed and the light is on that this represents Pain. It is analogous to a Neuron firing. You see the light come on and react because you know that's what you are supposed to do. But how long will this last. You will get bored. The fact the light comes on provides no real motivation to act. We need a CM to feel Pain when the light comes on. The Pain provides the motivation to survive. You will never get bored. It will always work. There were probably many other types of CM experiences that guided Evolution, but Pain was probably one of the first that developed. So we need a separate CM concept even for Evolution to work. I think it is possible that the real purpose for Evolution is related to development of the CM. The CM could be the driving force behind Evolution providing Motivation in the form of the Desire to avoid Bad Experiences and to seek out Good Experiences. This will have the incidental effect of increasing Survival Rates and thus guiding Evolutionary Outcomes.

First thing is that Science does not know what consciousness actually is. How can you simulate something when you don't know what the thing is that you are simulating? When Science gets a clue about Consciousness then we can talk about simulating it.

We Humans say we have Consciousness, but we don't really know what Consciousness is. We won't be able to say too much about the Consciousness of Fish until we understand what our own Human Consciousness is. I like to emphasize Conscious Sensory experiences like the perception of Color and specifically the perception of the color Red. What is the Redness of Red as a Conscious Experience? Hint: It has nothing to do with 680nm Electromagnetic phenomena. Just ponder the Redness in and of itself apart from the Physical phenomenon. I think that, when we can understand just one tiny aspect of our Consciousness, then we will understand it all, Human and Fish.

We Humans say we have Consciousness, but we don't really know what Consciousness is. We won't be able to say too much about the Consciousness of B, C, and D until we understand what the Consciousness of A is. I like to emphasize Conscious Sensory experiences like the perception of Color and specifically the perception of the color Red. What is the Redness of Red as a Conscious Experience? Hint: It has nothing to do with 680nm Electromagnetic phenomena. Just ponder the Redness in and of itself apart from the Physical phenomenon. I think that, when we can understand just one tiny aspect of our Consciousness, then we will understand it all.

Conscious Experience is not explained by Physical Brain Activity. Take for example the Conscious Experience of the Redness of Red. This Redness is in your Conscious Mind. What is it? How does it happen? Seems to be something that Science cannot now explain. Seems like it's not a Physical World Phenomenon but rather some yet to be discovered Conscious World Phenomenon. This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness.

But yet these two Phenomena are Categorically different things. The Electromagnetic thing is explained by Science but the Redness thing has no Scientific explanation. — SteveKlinko
Since we cannot explain the "Redness thing" we cannot determine whether mental phenomena are categorically different, except in the sense that one can be explained and the other cannot. If the mental can eventually be explained in physical terms then whether they are categorically different would depend on how one categorizes things. — Fooloso4

I think the Redness thing will always be in a different Category than the Electromagnetic thing even if Science can find an Explanation for the Redness thing. When Science finds an Explanation for the Redness thing then the Redness Category will be come a Scientific Category.