Okay, well Dennett's view is that we don't need to understand the hard problem, i.e. it's not a separate problem that will remain once all the easy problems are solved, but rather a conceptual problem arising from ignorance.

Okay, well Dennett's view is that we don't need to understand the hard problem, i.e. it's not a separate problem that will remain once all the easy problems are solved, but rather a conceptual problem arising from ignorance. — Kenosha Kid

But you know that is a stance he (you) are taking on this, not necessarily the case, right? I mean it isn't a forgone conclusion that there is not a hard problem. But my main point further, is certainly Dennett isn't even coming close to answering it by criticizing certain theories on the physical mechanisms and their subjective equivalent "illusionary" aspects, as they are reported by individuals.

So as long as we agree on at least that much- that Dennett is not even approaching the hard problem, then fine. In other words, in order to discount it, you have to actually grapple with it. He has not.

But you know that is a stance he (you) are taking on this, not necessarily the case, right? I mean it isn't a forgone conclusion that there is not a hard problem. — schopenhauer1

That's true of any stance, including the stance that the hard problem is distinct.

But my main point further, is certainly Dennett isn't even coming close to answering it by criticizing certain theories on the physical mechanisms and their subjective equivalent "illusionary" aspects, as they are reported by individuals. — schopenhauer1

If there's no question to answer, it would be odd to answer it.

If there's no question to answer, it would be odd to answer it. — Kenosha Kid

So, we can debate all day about the hard problem. The smaller claim I am making here is regarding the methodology of what is going on in this "debate". People like Strawson seem to be saying, "Look! There is this hard problem!". People like Dennett seem to be saying, "Yes, let me explain this by moving to things like qualia being subjectively illusionary as to their "realness" the person experiencing them". That's two different conversations. I would like to know Dennett's straight-ahead answer to it. It's like if we were talking about one subject and you went on a tangent in the same field but not really answering the question at hand. If I remember, all I can see is just some condescending string of sentences, some getting worked up for being asked the question and going back to qualia and the like. I'd like to see his direct views on the hard problem, even if it is just to dismantle it. But yet, when I read him trying to do this, he does the same SLEIGHT OF HAND. He keeps drowning out the problem with things that are not really the problem. Here is a perfect example:

Why the hard question is seldom asked
One explanation for the neglect of the hard question is that science in this area proceeds from the peripheries towards the interior, analysing the operation of transducers and following their effects inwards. Start with the low hanging fruit; it is a matter of proximity, non-invasiveness and more reliable manipulability—we can measure and control the stimulation of the peripheral transducers with great precision. Research on the efferent periphery, the innervation of muscles and the organization of higher-level neural motor structures, can be done, but is more difficult for a related reason, which has more general implications: controlled experiments are designed to isolate, to the extent possible, one or a few of the variable sources of input to the phenomenon—clamping the system, in short—and then measuring the dependent variables of output. Accomplishing this requires either invasive techniques (e.g. stimulation in vivo of motor areas) or indirect manipulation of subjects' motivation (e.g. ‘press button A when you hear the tone; press button B when you hear the click; try not to move otherwise’). In the latter case, researchers just assume, plausibly, that conscious subjects will understand the briefing, and be motivated to cooperate, and avoid interfering activities, mental or skeletal, with the result that they will assist the researcher in setting up a transient virtual machine in the cortex that restricts input to their motor systems to quite specific commands.

Similarly, working on the afferent side of the mountain, researchers brief subjects to attend to specific aspects of their sensory manifold, and to perform readily understood simple tasks (usually, as quickly as possible), with many repetitions and variations, all counterbalanced and timed. The result, on both the afferent and efferent fronts, is that subjects are systematically constrained—for the sake of science—to a tiny subset of the things they can do with their consciousness. Contrast this with non-scientific investigation of consciousness: ‘A penny for your thoughts’, ‘What are you looking at now?’, ‘What's up?’

This is all obvious, but it has a non-obvious side effect on the science of consciousness: it deflects attention from what is perhaps the most wonderful feature of human consciousness: the general answer to the hard question, ‘And then what happens?’ is ‘Almost anything can happen!’ Our conscious minds are amazingly free-wheeling, open-ended, protean, untrammelled, unconstrained, variable, unpredictable, … . Omni-representational. Not only can we think about anything that can occur to us, and not only can almost anything (anything ‘imaginable’, anything ‘conceivable’) occur to us, but once something has occurred to us, we can respond to it in an apparently unlimited variety of ways, and then respond to those responses in another Vast [11, p. 109] variety of ways, and so forth, an expanding set of possibilities that outruns even the productivity of natural languages (words fail me). Of course, on any particular occasion, the momentary states of the various component neural systems constrain the ‘adjacent possible’ [12] to a limited selection of ‘nearby’ contents, but this changes from moment to moment, and is not directly in anybody's control. It is this background of omnipotentiality that we take for granted, and cordon off accordingly in our experimental explorations. It is worth noting that we have scant reason to think that simpler nervous systems have a similar productivity. Most are likely to be ‘cognitively closed’ [13] systems, lacking the representational wherewithal to imagine a century or a continent, or poetry, or democracy, … or God. The famous four Fs (feed, fight, flee and mate) may, with a few supplements (e.g. explore, sleep) and minor suboptions, exhaust the degrees of freedom of invertebrates.

Probably even our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, have severely constricted repertoires of representation, compared with us. Here is a simple example: close your eyes right now and imagine, in whatever detail you like, putting a plastic wastebasket over your head and climbing hand-over-hand up a stout rope. Easy? Not difficult, even if you are not strong and agile enough—most of us are not—to actually perform the stunt yourself. Could a chimpanzee engage in the same ‘imagining’ or ‘mental time travel’ or ‘daydreaming’? I chose the action and the furnishings to be items deeply familiar to a captive chimp; there is no doubt such a chimp could recognize, manipulate, play with the basket, and swing or climb up the rope, but does its mind have the sort of self-manipulability to put together these familiar elements in novel ways? Maybe, but maybe not. The abilities of clever animals—primates, corvids, cephalopods, cetaceans—to come up with inventive solutions to problems have been vigorously studied recently (e.g. [14–16]), and this research sometimes suggests that they are capable of trying out their solutions ‘off line’ in their imaginations before venturing them in the cruel world, but we should not jump to the conclusion that their combinatorial freedom is as wide open as ours. For every ‘romantic’ finding, there are ‘killjoy’ findings [17] in which clever species prove to be (apparently) quite stupid in the face of not so difficult challenges.

One of the recurrent difficulties of research in this area is that in order to conduct proper, controlled scientific experiments, the researchers typically have to impose severe restrictions on their animals' freedom of movement and exploration, and also submit them to regimes of training that may involve hundreds or even thousands of repetitions in order to ensure that they attend to the right stimuli at the right time and are motivated to respond in the right manner (the manner intended by the researcher). Human subjects, by contrast, can be uniformly briefed (in a language they all understand) and given a few practice trials, and then be reliably motivated to perform as requested for quite long periods of time [18]. The tasks are as simple as possible, in order to be accurately measured, and the interference of ‘mind-wandering’ can be minimized by suitable motivations, intervals of relaxation, etc.

The effect, in both speaking human subjects and languageless animal subjects, is to minimize the degrees of freedom that are being exploited by the subjects, in order to get clean data. So, huge differences in the available degrees of freedom are systematically screened off, neither measured nor investigated.

This explains the relative paucity of empirical research on language production in contrast with language perception, on speaking in contrast with perceiving, parsing, comprehending. What are the inputs to a controlled experiment on speaking? It is easy to induce subjects to read passages aloud, of course, or answer ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ to questions displayed, but if the experimenter were to pose a task along the lines of ‘tell me something of interest about your life’ or ‘what do you think of Thai cuisine?’ or ‘say something funny’, the channel of possible responses is hopelessly broad for experimental purposes.

Amir et al. [19] attempted to find an fMRI signature for humour in an experiment that showed subjects simple ‘Droodle’ drawings [20–22] that could be simply described or given amusing interpretations (figure 1).
— Facing up to the hard question of consciousnessbDaniel C. Dennett Published:30 July 2018

That's two different conversations. I would like to know Dennett's straight-ahead answer to it. — schopenhauer1

His straight ahead answer is that it's not a distinct question, i.e. that consciousness arises from simpler processes described by answers to easier questions. The hard/easy distinction relies on there remaining a hard problem after the easy problems are solved. His answer is that this isn't the case: understand the easy problems, none of which yield what we mean by the consciousness of the hard problem individually, and you will have the answer to the hard problem.

This seems akin to building a house. Someone comes along and says, 'Hey, nice foundations but when are you going to build a house?', then later, 'Hey, nice walls, but when are you going to build a house?' Then up goes the roof and voila a house.

At the moment, we don't fully understand how the brain works... our understanding has no roof, maybe some missing walls so to speak, and that's used by mystics as an excuse to separate out the hard problem and insist it's not being answered. Dennett's answer is that we are already in the process of answering it by building up knowledge about how the brain works.

For instance, seeing a car as a car rather than some generic smudge of colour in a background of smudges of colour is an important aspect of the disputed qualia of 'this car'. As Isaac described, we already know much about how the brain recognises objects, so the hard aspect of this is pushed back to purely the subjective appraisal of the quale and not the derivation of any of its properties: a hard problem of the gaps. Likewise other shapes, colour, orientation, distance, name, and everything else that makes up the contents of our subjective experiences. What we're left with is a question of how a particular part of the brain does one particular thing, out of all the almost countless other things the brain is doing to construct our subjective experience that are becoming clear.

This seems akin to building a house. Someone comes along and says, 'Hey, nice foundations but when are you going to build a house?', then later, 'Hey, nice walls, but when are you going to build a house?' Then up goes the roof and voila a house. — Kenosha Kid

Non-reductive physicalism is pretty standard in philosophy of mind. Is that what you're describing here?

Non-reductive physicalism is pretty standard in philosophy of mind. Is that what you're describing here? — frank

That's how I'm describing Dennett's position, which is also mine. I'm not arguing against irreducibility here myself, rather pointing out that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to observe that Dennett believes that no separable hard problem exists and still ask what his answer to it is. He believes, rightly imo, that the hard problem of consciousness is nothing more than a bunch of easier problems.

The premise is patently not coming close to answering the hard problem at hand. The claim is that by describing the easier problems, the hard problem will little if nothing left. However, the easier questions aren't even approaching the answer, so how can it "close off" the hard problem when it never ventured the realm of answering it? Let me deconstruct what I mean based on one of your examples:

For instance, seeing a car as a car rather than some generic smudge of colour in a background of smudges of colour is an important aspect of the disputed qualia of 'this car'. As Isaac described, we already know much about how the brain recognises objects, so the hard aspect of this is pushed back to purely the subjective appraisal of the quale and not the derivation of any of its properties: a hard problem of the gaps. Likewise other shapes, colour, orientation, distance, name, and everything else that makes up the contents of our subjective experiences. What we're left with is a question of how a particular part of the brain does one particular thing, out of all the almost countless other things the brain is doing to construct our subjective experience that are becoming clear. — Kenosha Kid

Here we are describing processes that have some "what it feels like" aspect to it. Yet, instead of getting to the "what it feels like" aspect WHY this is in the first place, we go back to cognitive processes and the correlates. Now YOU have to be charitable enough to realize that hard questioners AREN'T denying the science of the findings of cognitive neuroscience. Rather, they are asking why it is that the processes even have a "What it's like" aspect. Just pointing back to the processes isn't an answer to that particular question. So it isn't a hard problem of the gaps. It's all gaps because the divide is not even being recognized. It's like someone asking you a clear question and then you rambling on about a bunch of findings that don't answer it. It's ignoring it and then pointing to some other line of thought. It's having a one way conversation with someone who does not recognize there is a conversation.

That's how I'm describing Dennett's position, — Kenosha Kid

You need to stop doing that. Dennett is a reductionist.

At the moment, we don't fully understand how the brain works... our understanding has no roof, maybe some missing walls so to speak, and that's used by mystics as an excuse to separate out the hard problem and insist it's not being answered. — Kenosha Kid

a hard problem of the gaps — Kenosha Kid

This is dead on. @Wayfarer posted a link to a collection of perhaps quite serious academic work on psi phenomena (William James would be thrilled!). I can't possibly judge how good the work is, but what leapt out at me was the title: Irreducible Consciousness. That word, "irreducible", has a very particular connotation for a lot of us, and it's not a nice one.

That word, "irreducible", has a very particular connotation for a lot of us, and it's not a nice one. — Srap Tasmaner

A lot of this goes down to whether you want there to be a dualism in your scheme. Anytime you have "rises out of" "emerges from" and it is some subjective state that adds the very "feeling" of the world that you are using to analyze it, you are in trouble. Now you are a (hidden) dualist.. That's not going to jive well if you wanted to be a materialist/physicalist of some kind.

However, the easier questions aren't even approaching the answer, so how can it "close off" the hard problem when it never ventured the realm of answering it? — schopenhauer1

But that again is merely your insistence that the hard problem is separable and distinct. You're not demonstrating that Dennett isn't answering the question; you're disputing the grounds on which he answers it, just as he disputes the grounds on which you ask it.

Now YOU have to be charitable enough to realize that hard questioners AREN'T denying the science of the findings of cognitive neuroscience. — schopenhauer1

Now, yes. But the answers that cognitive neuroscience yields were once thought to be inseparable aspects of that hard problem. Now they're not, hence: hard problem of the gaps.

It's ignoring it and then pointing to some other line of thought. — schopenhauer1

It's not a distinct question, so it's not some unrelated line of thought either. It's what people who are actually interested in the phenomenon are doing while people who are interested in their own belief systems wet themselves.

you are in trouble — schopenhauer1

No I'm not. Human beings are made of the same stuff as other animals and the medium-sized dry goods in our environment; we are the sort of animals we are because of exactly the same processes of evolution that result in other animals being the way they are. And when we're not unconscious, we're conscious. That fact doesn't trouble me in the least. Why on earth should it? It's exactly as interesting as the rest of natural science, but it's not shocking or troubling in some way. I honestly have no idea why people think it is.

No, that's not a theory. That's a hypothesis, a postulate, a proposal. — Philosophim

Whatever it is called you still can't say that it is established science that brain = mind.

Lets clarify then. First, a "convincing argument" means a rational argument concluded with deduction. Deductions must then be applied and tested against reality to ensure we had the entire picture, and that the deduction holds when faced with other people, or use in reality. — Philosophim

Firstly, 'rational' is much more than primitive scientific/mathematical facts. Science and math. deal with basic, material, primitive things. Rationality is much more than this. Sound arguments that don't prove the point are rational. A deduction may hold but some deductions, for want of a better word, are untestable. How would you test if the brain is conscious? Yet, some people deduce that it is. Any such test would have to ignore the warning that correlation may not be causation.

For example, we could deduce in physics that if X object is applied Y force in a vector, it will accelerate at Z speed. So we go outside, we do that, but it doesn't work. We think about it for a moment and we realize we didn't take into account the wind. So we go indoors without any wind, and it turns out our deduction works. We just forgot to take wind as a factor. — Philosophim

True but neuroscience is far from being in possession of all the factors. That's the problem. It is not easy to reduce it to primitive relationships like in physics.

If you make a claim about reality, you must test it against reality. — Philosophim

This sounds like Logical Positivism to me. You are saying everything must be testable in terms of measurable facts. That looks like L.P.

We have not discovered any application of "deduction or rational argument" that consciousness exists apart from the brain. — Philosophim

I disagree. I think there are plenty of rational arguments that hold up.

Finally, I am not a logical positivist. I am not accusing you of holding any particular philosophy, — Philosophim

I'm not saying you are. I am saying that your way of reasoning with this particular issue seems to be an attempt to define what is rational and what is real within L.P. parameters.

You ask for an argument for non material mind. Here is a reasonable argument that neuroscientists are looking at analogues rather than real thought. Analogues, metaphors and images arise naturally in the physical world. Take for example the function $x^2$. This is a concept involving real numbers. But it is possible to make a graph of $x^2$ on a sheet of paper. The graph is an analogue or image of the idea of $x^2$. In fact all graphs involving statistics etc, are images or analogues of the real thing.

Another analogue is a hydrogen atom. There is no material substance per se, in the way our senses naively convince us. The substance of the atom is energy and there is no 'physical' substance to it; it is only a physical image of an energy field. The whole physical universe is an analogue of something else. People are now saying that the universe is really information/mathematics and the physical universe is an analogue of 'mathematical' truth. (I'm putting the word in inverted commas because mathematics, in its entirety, is way beyond anything we currently understand mathematics to be.)

Another image is body language. We speak, subconsciously, about our emotional state by way of body language. In this way body language is an image of something beyond what is visible in terms of physical perception. All languages are images or analogues of something deeper.

If the physical world is really just an analogue of other things then it would be no surprise that physical systems, including the brain, are images of the real thing. We live in a world of images. Philosophers should be careful to distinguish between the image and the reality.

But that again is merely your insistence that the hard problem is separable and distinct. You're not demonstrating that Dennett isn't answering the question; you're disputing the grounds on which he answers it, just as he disputes the grounds on which you ask it. — Kenosha Kid

Yep. That does seem to be more the divide here. Not recognizing the legitimacy of the other side.

Now, yes. But the answers that cognitive neuroscience yields were once thought to be inseparable aspects of that hard problem. Now they're not, hence: hard problem of the gaps. — Kenosha Kid

I would not say that the are really. I would give you neuroscience has answered questions about processes that would not be known if we didn't know about the behavior of neurons or experimentation. Again, you have to at least recognize that "hard problmers" are recognizing this too. They are just not recognizing that it is answering the hard problem. It is tangential and near it, but not the question. No one is disputing that processes correlate with certain phenomenal experiences. No problems there.

It's not a distinct question, so it's not some unrelated line of thought either. It's what people who are actually interested in the phenomenon are doing while people who are interested in their own belief systems wet themselves. — Kenosha Kid

Again, as I explain. I don't think hard problmers have any problems with scientific research into cognitive neuroscience. It is the attachment that this is answering the question that they have a problem with. You again, do not recognize this. This is exactly why I said several posts ago that you have to at least be charitable that they recognize cognitive neuroscience findings.

No I'm not. Human beings are made of the same stuff as other animals and the medium-sized dry goods in our environment — Srap Tasmaner

Who said we weren't? Not me.

we are the sort of animals we are because of exactly the same processes of evolution that result in other animals being the way they are. — Srap Tasmaner

Agreed there in terms of underlying evolutionary mechanisms, though I will add that each animal has contingently a unique combination of those underlying mechanisms that can result in novelty and then usually reuse later. So its a combination of novelty and exaptations perhaps. But this doesn't mean I disagree that the basic underlying mechanisms are the same.

And when we're not unconscious, we're conscious. — Srap Tasmaner

Ok.

That fact doesn't trouble me in the least. Why on earth should it? It's exactly as interesting as the rest of natural science, but it's not shocking or troubling in some way. I honestly have no idea why people think it is. — Srap Tasmaner

The troubling thing is that there is a "What it feels like" component going on (read as mental states). How mental states exist, what it is as compared to the physical mechanisms that are correlated with it, is why it is such a perplexing question. We can also add in the odd understanding of how is it something can "emerge" in the first place. Emergence implies some sort of epistemic leap from one stage into another. I'll just leave it at that.

Not recognizing the legitimacy of the other side. — schopenhauer1

Well, I'm not suggesting you must recognise the legitimacy of Dennett's view; I'm pointing out that it makes no sense to observe on the one hand that Dennett believes that no distinct hard problem exists and on the other to expect him to give an answer to the distinct hard problem. I'm not trying to convert you, although I guess Dennett is.

Again, you have to at least recognize that "hard problmers" are recognizing this too. — schopenhauer1

I disagree. Being a 'hard problemer' is not a discipline for acquiring knowledge and answering questions; rather, it is a statement of intent; no matter what neuroscience or any other physical science explains, we will always claim there is a bit left over unaccounted for, hence the god-of-the-gaps analogy. So I'd say no, having that particular belief system renders science an irrelevancy, much as believing the Earth is 6,000 years old irrespective of what geology tells us renders science an irrelevancy.

Dennett's view might be summed up like this: if and when we know all there is to know about the brain, one could point to these processes and structures over here and say this is identically having experience. e.g. the neuron firing in recognition of Halle Berry's face is part of the experience of seeing Halle Berry's face.

The sort of viewpoint I gather you're espousing is that, no, these will always be interpreted as merely correlates of the thing, but never the thing itself, god forbid. So while all of the content of an experience might be accounted for neurological correlates, and the start of an experience might be preceded by neurological correlates, these correlates cannot constitute the having an experience itself, they can only be little helpers.

As Susan Blackmore put it when discussing the futility of searching for neural correlates of consciousness:

The trouble is it depends on a dualist—and ultimately unworkable—theory of consciousness. The underlying intuition is that consciousness is an added extra—something additional to and different from the physical processes on which it depends. Searching for the NCCs relies on this difference. On one side of the correlation you measure neural processes using EEG, fMRI or other kinds of brain scan; on the other you measure subjective experiences or 'consciousness itself'. — Blackmore

In other words, hard problemers have it back to front. Dennett agrees with the above: there's no separable hard problem to answer. NCCs aren't correlates but the thing itself, not individually but as a messy whole. The likes of Strawson misrepresent this as a claim that 'consciousness does not exist', but in fact it's an affirmative claim that consciousness is real, not an added sprinkle of magic on top of real stuff.

The sort of viewpoint I gather you're espousing is that, no, these will always be interpreted as merely correlates of the thing, but never the thing itself, god forbid. So while all of the content of an experience might be accounted for neurological correlates, and the start of an experience might be preceded by neurological correlates, these correlates cannot constitute the having an experience itself, they can only be little helpers. — Kenosha Kid

In other words, hard problemers have it back to front. Dennett agrees with the above: there's no separable hard problem to answer. NCCs aren't correlates but the thing itself, not individually but as a messy whole. The likes of Strawson misrepresent this as a claim that 'consciousness does not exist', but in fact it's an affirmative claim that consciousness is real, not an added sprinkle of magic on top of real stuff. — Kenosha Kid

So this is as I thought, again, talking past each other. Hard problemers wouldn't even discount that the neurological correlate is the thing itself. Rather, it would be why this metaphysical case exists that the neurological underpinnings is experiential. Yep it "causes" experience. Not debated. How is it metaphysically the same as experience is the question.

Hard problemers wouldn't even discount that the neurological correlate is the thing itself. Rather, it would be why this metaphysical case exists that the neurological underpinnings is experiential. — schopenhauer1

That's not a definition of the hard problem I have heard of before. The formulation I've always come across is the one that might admit correlates of consciousness in neurology, but never consciousness itself.

Yep it "causes" experience. Not debated. How is it metaphysically the same as experience is the question. — schopenhauer1

Well, "causes" experience is not as specific as "is identically experience", which you were open to two sentences ago, so you need to be clearer about what limits you're placing on scientific explanatory power.

Neurology is a physical discipline. It is not its job to satisfy metaphysicists any more than it's its job to satisfy creationists or dualists. If you're in principle satisfied that the science can isolate what consciousness is, not just correlates (including causal) of consciousness, but want a deeper understanding of why a thing that is something is that thing, which is not a question specific to consciousness at all, you ought to look to other metaphysicists, surely? Is there a specific aspect to consciousness that makes this special?

That's not a definition of the hard problem I have heard of before. The formulation I've always come across is the one that might admit correlates of consciousness in neurology, but never consciousness itself. — Kenosha Kid

I believe something like panpsychism would be perfectly okay with neurological phenomena equating with experience. However, they jettison the dualism of only neurons doing in their arrangements and composition being equated with experience. However, whether pansychists are correct, you can have hard problemers who see the physical phenomena as the thing itself, but they try to solve it by saying it is there from the beginning rather than something from nothing. However, if we start debating this, then we are actually debating the hard problem, and no longer waving it away. I am fine with that, but I didn't want to shift the conversation to panpsychism, rather that the question at hand is how it is certain physical phenomena can be equivalent to experience, or rather why experience in the first place, not what mechanisms are responsible for what experience.

Neurology is a physical discipline. It is not its job to satisfy metaphysicists any more than it's its job to satisfy creationists or dualists. — Kenosha Kid

True but Dennett is a philosopher to be fair, and not a strict neuroscientist. It would not be out of the realm of possibility for other philosophers to engage him in these kind of (philosophical) questions. And I recognize this might be a legitimate neuroscience question, it is a legitimate philosophical question.

ne. It is not its job to satisfy metaphysicists any more than it's its job to satisfy creationists or dualists. If you're in principle satisfied that the science can isolate what consciousness is, not just correlates (including causal) of consciousness, but want a deeper understanding of why a thing that is something is that thing, which is not a question specific to consciousness at all, you ought to look to other metaphysicists, surely? Is there a specific aspect to consciousness that makes this special? — Kenosha Kid

I am not sure what you are asking. I think we are agreeing that the hard problem question is probably not a strict neuroscience answer. But philosophers never expected it to be. It's when a philosopher handwaves it and then narrowly focuses on the correlates when clearly the question is not about the mechanisms of how the correlates integrate, but how it is that this correlation exists in the first place, that's when there is the continual ignoring of question or talking past each other.

It fixes the conceptual problem at issue. Hacker makes a concrete proposal that doesn't assume dualism. — Andrew M

However, Christian doctrine must allow for the immortality of the soul, must it not?

Irreducible Consciousness. — Srap Tasmaner

'Irreducible Mind'. There were many hostile reviews of it at the time of release, but, asked to 'cite evidence' of the non-material nature of mind, it's as good a source as any. Not that it recieved any acknowledgement from the poster I cited it to.

NCCs aren't correlates but the thing itself, not individually but as a messy whole. — Kenosha Kid

Here's a question. When you grasp a mathematical concept, even a simple one, like the sum of two numbers - you're seeing something of an intelligible (as distinct from physical) nature, right? I mean, a number is not actually the symbol but an idea. And that concept - say the number 7 - can be represented in any number of ways, by different symbols, in different media and so on. So how could the idea itself be identified with anything physical, when the physical representation is arbitary? You could invent a whole arbitrary system of symbols, but if it followed the rules, it would be valid even if noboby else understood it. And those rules are real, but I can't see how they're physical in nature.

'Irreducible Mind' — Wayfarer

That's the one, my bad. If it got reviewed at all I guess that's something. Mainstream folks also seem to think it's worthwhile attacking Sheldrake but not, say, Zecharia Sitchin, so again that's something. I say more power to 'em, even though I think it's all bullshit.

Hmmm hadn’t heard that name. I met Sheldrake once, a charming and erudite gentleman. Oh, astronauts. No, not buying. Sheldrake’s theories originated from his work in plant biology, unlike a lot of pop intellectuals he does have scientific publications to his name.

True but Dennett is a philosopher to be fair, and not a strict neuroscientist. It would not be out of the realm of possibility for other philosophers to engage him in these kind of (philosophical) questions. And I recognize this might be a legitimate neuroscience question, it is a legitimate philosophical question. — schopenhauer1

It is a question in philosophy; I wouldn't go as far as to say it was legitimate. Dennett's philosophy is science-based; he is not obliged to consider other metaphysics, e.g. to explain the soul as a separate, immortal quantity.

It's when a philosopher handwaves it and then narrowly focuses on the correlates when clearly the question is not about the mechanisms of how the correlates integrate, but how it is that this correlation exists in the first place, that's when there is the continual ignoring of question or talking past each other. — schopenhauer1

In three sentences you've gone from being open to the neurological phenomena being identically consciousness, to being merely the cause of consciousness, to being merely a correlate of consciousness again. All I can say is to repeat: if you are aware that, in Dennett's view, they are not merely correlates but the thing itself, it doesn't make any sense to expect him to answer a question on the separate question of the thing itself that is not meaningful in that view, or to pretend he hasn't addressed the question because he doesn't treat it as a separable problem.

Neurology is a physical discipline. It is not its job to satisfy metaphysicists any more than it's its job to satisfy creationists or dualists. If you're in principle satisfied that the science can isolate what consciousness is, not just correlates (including causal) of consciousness, but want a deeper understanding of why a thing that is something is that thing, which is not a question specific to consciousness at all, you ought to look to other metaphysicists, surely? Is there a specific aspect to consciousness that makes this special? — Kenosha Kid

I’ll try to reframe what is at issue in the hard problem of consciousness. I’m thinking maybe it might be of help. (Then again, it might not.)

A brain is tangible (to a consciousness); a consciousness is not tangible (to any consciousness).
Therein lies a, or maybe the, pivotal ontological difference—even when eschewing the issue of whether a consciousness can hold non-epiphenomenal, hence top-down, effects upon its own substratum of brain.

Tangentially, I’ll add that this thread's persistent reference to brains is overlooking the fact that even amebas hold an awareness of other: such as in an ameba’s capacity to discern what is relative to itself a predator from what is a prey. And that coupled with this awareness of other is a forethought of how to best act towards that which is apprehended as other by it (again, as example, a predator or a prey) so as to maximize its own stability of being. To evade, an ameba needs to foresee how to best evade the moment by moment activities of its predator; likewise to consume pray, it needs to foresee how to best sabotage the moment by moment activities of its prey (which can be smaller amebas). In cases such as that of the unicellular ameba, there is no nervous system involved in the awareness that takes place. And how the single-celled corpus of an ameba brings about a concordant (intangible) amebic-awareness replete with degrees of forethought is anybody’s guess. Point being, first-person awareness is not strictly contingent on living brains.

That mentioned, there’s no doubt that the processes of a central nervous system correlate with those of its respective consciousness—in addition to correlating to the occurrence of a consciousness’s subconscious or unconscious mind. (Despite their awareness of givens such as environmental factors, the latter two aspects of a total mind are not commonly addressed as being of themselves conscious: consciousness being instead reserved for the first-person awareness held by each of us—rather than for our sub- or unconscious mind’s awareness of givens.)

Again, though, we can empirically study the workings of the brain all we want. And, in so doing, we will undoubtably gain greater insights into the bottom-up processes in which the workings of a living brain can result in a respective consciousness (not all living brains do, with coma as an easily addressed example). Nonetheless, the physical brain and all it does will forever be tangible percepts which we perceive as other relative to us as the consciously aware observers. Whereas our living brain and its processes are tangible percepts, the consciousness aware of them is not tangible even to itself. And all our empirical knowledge—including of brains—stems from, and is ontologically dependent on, the occurrence of (always intangible) consciousness.

If, simplistically put, a living brain is identical to a consciousness, they then should both be either tangible or, else, intangible. But they hold different ontological properties in this respect; they are not identical.

Explaining how that which is perceived and is thereby tangible accounts for that which perceives and is intangible will, then, be one vantage to what the hard problem of consciousness is about.

So how could the idea itself be identified with anything physical, when the physical representation is arbitary? You could invent a whole arbitrary system of symbols, but if it followed the rules, it would be valid even if noboby else understood it. And those rules are real, but I can't see how they're physical in nature. — Wayfarer

I had a dream about sky jellyfish on the moon once. They're not real either. I hope...

I’m sometimes accused of ducking questions, obviously I’m not alone.

A brain is tangible (to a consciousness); a consciousness is not tangible (to any consciousness).
Therein lies a, or maybe the, pivotal ontological difference—even when eschewing the issue of whether a consciousness can hold non-epiphenomenal, hence top-down, effects upon its own substratum of brain. — javra

I don't think this is explicit, but yeah it's basically the claim... there must be something of consciousness that is elementary and non-physical, otherwise we're just stuff physical doing physical things and that hurts our feelings.

Tangentially, I’ll add that this thread's persistent reference to brains is overlooking the fact that even amebas hold an awareness of other: such as in an ameba’s capacity to discern what is relative to itself a predator from what is a prey. — javra

Well, you could see this thread for an example of taking the idea further: even electrons have awareness of each other. As an intermediary point: even trees are aware of one another. The point befits the fact that human consciousness is a sophisticated kind of mammalian consciousness, which is a sophisticated kind of animal consciousness, which is a sophisticated kind of biological reactivity, which is a sophisticated set of chemical reactions, which are sophisticated sets of electromagnetic particle interactions.

But I think by awareness, we mean sentient awareness.

Nonetheless, the physical brain and all it does will forever be tangible percepts which we perceive as other relative to us as the consciously aware observers. — javra

If I'm reading you right, you're talking about the third-person/first-person barrier. That is true. If you want to know what consciousness is, that is a third-person question. If you want to know what it feels like, that is a first-person question. The former can explain the later, i.e. can say: "this set of processes is identically that" but understanding an experience won't be the same as having it, anymore than me understanding why you're crying at Bambi will be the same as me crying at Bambi, or understanding why the apple fell from the tree will be the same as an apple falling from the tree.

But that's not a justification for saying that it isn't then a complete explanation. A complete explanation for why the apple falls from the tree is just that; it doesn't also have to be an apple falling from a tree. Likewise an explanation for consciousness doesn't need to feel like consciousness.

If, simplistically put, a living brain is identical to a consciousness, they then should both be either tangible or, else, intangible. But they hold different ontological properties in this respect; they are not identical. — javra

There's a difference between substance and function. There is a difference, for instance, in an electron and the movement of an electron. There is a difference between a computer and an executing program. You can't just look at the object, you have to look at what it does if you want to explain e.g. electric current, a machine learning algorithm, or consciousness.

I’m sometimes accused of ducking questions, obviously I’m not alone. — Wayfarer

Well, it was analogous, so I thought that would nail it. More explicitly, the contents of consciousness correlate immediately to mental processes, not to physical, objective referents.

Well, you could see this thread for an example of taking the idea further: even electrons have awareness of each other. As an intermediary point: even trees are aware of one another. The point befits the fact that human consciousness is a sophisticated kind of mammalian consciousness, which is a sophisticated kind of animal consciousness, which is a sophisticated kind of biological reactivity, which is a sophisticated set of chemical reactions, which are sophisticated sets of electromagnetic particle interactions. — Kenosha Kid

We're in accord here. Though I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, so to speak, do you see how all this meshes with the notion of panpsychism?.

If I'm reading you right, you're talking about the third-person/first-person barrier. That is true. If you want to know what consciousness is, that is a third-person question. — Kenosha Kid

I prefer "fourth-person" as the idealized objective view - rather than "third-person", which to me implies "he, she, it (in the case of lesser animals) they, or them" ... all of which are deemed endowed with their own first-person awareness.

Still, maybe this presumption - that consciousness must and can only be understood via what I'll term fourth-person means - is at the crux of the issue. For a physicalist, this must be the case. For many a non-physicalist (I'll give C.S. Peirce like objective idealism as one example), despite the correlation between a human's CNS and a respective consciousness, this cannot ever be the case. Yes, in part because that which is first-person awareness is other relative to all it apprehends.

Of note, in so upholding, the physicalist by implication will then also uphold the stance of epiphenomenalism, right?. Here, top-down effects upon brain are an impossibility given the dictums which hold the worldview of physicalism together. Do you find this statement to be accurate?

Likewise an explanation for consciousness doesn't need to feel like consciousness. — Kenosha Kid

No, of course not. But it would need to give reasons for why tangible X, Y, and Z results in what it feels like to be conscious--rather than taking the latter occurrence for granted.

There's a difference between substance and function. There is a difference, for instance, in an electron and the movement of an electron. There is a difference between a computer and an executing program. You can't just look at the object, you have to look at what it does if you want to explain e.g. electric current, a machine learning algorithm, or consciousness. — Kenosha Kid

With that, now we're getting into metaphysical underpinnings - which could be disputed in multiple ways, depending on the vantage taken.

I was/am here only trying to differently present what the hubbub is about when it comes to the hard problem ... basically just aiming at the issue being better understood by supporters of Dennett et al.