I've since grown comfortable with the concept of emergent consciousness. I am only made of my physical self, which is undergoing constant change, meaning I'm basically a new me every day. There's no eternal self, and probably no sharp line to draw between conscious and unconscious. — HuggetZukker
Another way to look at it is that there is one consciousness that flows through a vast multitude of individual brain-body-minds, like sunlight refracting through a set of different prisms. — rachMiel
But now back to the topic in hand. — Pattern-chaser
By "emergent" - do you mean the mind is not reducible to the physical and operates (at least partly) independently of the laws of nature?
But now back to the topic in hand. — Pattern-chaser
You mean our commentary on HZ's current view on consciousness? That's what I tried to do ... in a tangential kind of way, by suggesting another way of looking at the same(ish) thing. Not directly OT-related enough? — rachMiel
I don't follow how this resolves the problem of what is consciousness or how is it that you are conscious. This seems to only answer the question of where consciousness come from. My understanding of emergent theories is that they explain how consciousness can arise in a purely physical environment — Hanover
But we do know what we are looking for. We just are unable to find it, so we give up and say things like the Neural Representation is the Conscious Experience. This is worse Superstition than that which you started with. There is zero explanatory power in such a statement. The Hard Problem remains.I don't follow how this resolves the problem of what is consciousness or how is it that you are conscious. This seems to only answer the question of where consciousness come from. My understanding of emergent theories is that they explain how consciousness can arise in a purely physical environment — Hanover
In my case the problem specifically concerned qualia, so it was the "hard problem". My change boils down to the realization that the hard problem is not a problem, because if you don't know what you're looking for, you're not actually looking for anything, so you won't find "it."
Suppose there is found a neural effect that correlates with someone's account of experiencing "red". Then the hard problem proposes to ask how the neural representation of red causes a conscious experience of red. What does not seem to be considered is the possibility that the neural representation of red is the conscious experience of red.
I can sympathize with wanting there to be some kind of "conscious endpoint" besides the machinery itself, but if there is no physical role hypothesized for it, how will you know what signs to look for? How will you know when you have found it? — HuggetZukker
But we do know what we are looking for. We just are unable to find it, so we give up and say things like the Neural Representation is the Conscious Experience. This is worse Superstition than that which you started with. There is zero explanatory power in such a statement. The Hard Problem remains. — SteveKlinko
Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. — from Chalmers's formulation
I simply recognize two Categories of things that happen. First Category is all the Neural Activity that can happen. Second Category is all the Qualia that can happen. It appears that Neural Activity leads to or produces Qualia. You cant just say that the Neural Activity is the Qualia. The Neural Activity is one Category of Phenomenon and the Qualia is a different whole Category of Phenomenon. If they are the same thing then the burden is on you to show how these two disparate Categories can be one and the same thing. Nobody knows how the Neural Activity produces the Qualia. I don't have any theories of how this can happen. There's nothing to falsify. The Hard Problem remains.You have a hypothesis that, to my understanding, claims it is possible to find something in the brain that transforms physical information or physical processing into qualia.
How can the hypothesis be falsified? What predictions does the hypothesis make? This is what I mean by knowing what you're looking for.
I don't think neuroscience should quit studying any aspects of consciousness, including perception and qualia. Any kind of studying of consciousness is a good thing.
Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. — from Chalmers's formulation
When it is asked how it can be that "physical processing" (something physical) gives rise to "a rich inner life" (something not defined in physical terms), it creates the problem, what kind of physical signs might "rich inner life" leave? At some point we must identify something as the physical sign we were looking for, since if the thing we are looking for isn't physical, how can it possibly be found by natural sciences?
Also, "it seems objectively unreasonable that it should" is being asserted without an actual attempt at justification. — HuggetZukker
When I presented my thoughts to my friend, he expressed disappointment in me. He said, he had thought I was a smart, rational person, who would reject such superstition. In frustration he argued something to the effect of, "You are you, because who else could be you?!" I couldn't even define my stance in a way that sounded logical, since it was ultimately an illogical stance. — HuggetZukker
I've since grown comfortable with the concept of emergent consciousness. I am only made of my physical self, which is undergoing constant change, meaning I'm basically a new me every day. There's no eternal self, and probably no sharp line to draw between conscious and unconscious. — HuggetZukker
Daniel Stern' in his book "The Interpersonal World of the Infant" proposed the following stages of a child development: the sequence of the Senses of the Self - they include the Sense of an Emergent Self (birth‐2 months of age); Sense of Core Self (2–6 months); Sense of Subjective Self (7–15 months); Sense of a Verbal Self (15 months on). These Selves are different kinds of conciseness coexisting in an adult's mind as heterogenic components of one complex assemblage.the problem of what is consciousness or how is it that you are conscious. This seems to only answer the question of where consciousness come from. My understanding of emergent theories is that they explain how consciousness can arise in a purely physical environment. — Hanover
I simply recognize two Categories of things that happen. First Category is all the Neural Activity that can happen. Second Category is all the Qualia that can happen. It appears that Neural Activity leads to or produces Qualia. You cant just say that the Neural Activity is the Qualia. The Neural Activity is one Category of Phenomenon and the Qualia is a different whole Category of Phenomenon. If they are the same thing then the burden is on you to show how these two disparate Categories can be one and the same thing. Nobody knows how the Neural Activity produces the Qualia. I don't have any theories of how this can happen. There's nothing to falsify. The Hard Problem remains. — SteveKlinko
I don't like the sound of your friend, sorry. — bert1
Could you give an example of a creature, or a state of being, or structure or function or whatever, which is neither clearly conscious nor clearly not-conscious? — bert1
Anyone else could be HuggetZukker — bert1
I would look at the generation of Qualia as the final product that results from a chain of processing. The chain starts with the Retina and progresses back to the Visual Cortex areas. During all this there is a good amount of feedback connections that affect the forward processing. But somewhere during the Cortex processing the Qualia is generated. How does this happen? That is the essence of the Hard Problem and the Explanatory Gap. I think this chain of processing is a machine like Deterministic processing even if we don't know how it works at the level of the Qualia. Where the non-Deterministic aspect comes in is when you consider Conscious Volition. This probably also happens in stages but it would originate in the Mind and flow back to the Neurons to produce bodily motion. Science does not know how any of this works. People are mostly just afraid to even think about the possibility of these things. Science just denies Consciousness and Conscious Volition even though it is the 800 pound Gorilla in the Scientific room.I simply recognize two Categories of things that happen. First Category is all the Neural Activity that can happen. Second Category is all the Qualia that can happen. It appears that Neural Activity leads to or produces Qualia. You cant just say that the Neural Activity is the Qualia. The Neural Activity is one Category of Phenomenon and the Qualia is a different whole Category of Phenomenon. If they are the same thing then the burden is on you to show how these two disparate Categories can be one and the same thing. Nobody knows how the Neural Activity produces the Qualia. I don't have any theories of how this can happen. There's nothing to falsify. The Hard Problem remains. — SteveKlinko
If you sufficiently deconstruct anything that is actual and thoroughly deconstructible, you will end up with a model of how it works. Such a model makes anything look functional and quantitative in nature (physical, even if you call it by another name), which may be contrary to one's everyday intuition about qualia. If such a functional clockwork* is an unsatisfactory picture, it may well mean that one has no justifiable choice but to adapt one's intuition to that which is superficially unintuitive.
Of course, I cannot therefore prove that the cause of the conscious experience of qualia is something other than a clockwork* in nature, unlike everything else which is actual that we know of, since you can't prove a negative.
*The word "clockwork" carries the outmoded connotation of perfect determinism, which is at odds with quantum mechanics. Therefore, I'd really like to find a similar word, which does not connote determinism at the fundamental level of reality. I hope you can catch my meaning despite this. — HuggetZukker
Here's what the Inter Mind website says about the two way connection:
With any Conscious experience there seems to be an implied Conscious Self (CSf) that experiences the experience. One approach is to say that the Conscious experience and the CSf are all part of a single Conscious Mind thing. I think the best thing to say is that we really don't know how to understand this yet, which is ironic because this is what we are.
The CSf can have Good experiences, Neutral experiences, or Bad experiences. The CSf will try to seek out Good experiences and try to avoid Bad experiences. The CSf must have a Conscious Volition (CV) capability in order to satisfy it's desires. This means that the Inter Mind must not only connect forward from the Physical Mind to the Conscious Mind but must also connect backward from the Conscious Mind to the Physical Mind. With the forward connection the Inter Mind is monitoring the Physical Mind and converting Neural Activity into Conscious experience. With the backward connection the Inter Mind is monitoring the Conscious Mind and converting CV into Neural Activity to move the Physical Body. — SteveKlinko
Science just denies Consciousness and Conscious Volition even though it is the 800 pound Gorilla in the Scientific room. — SteveKlinko
Each of us knows what our own Conscious Mind is by virtue of the Experiences we have but we would be unable to explain it. Consciousness is as I have been saying a Categorically different thing than anything Science knows about in the Physical Universe. This does not mean it can not be a Neural thing. But until Science makes the discovery to explain that to us it makes more sense to keep it a separate thing.Here's what the Inter Mind website says about the two way connection:
With any Conscious experience there seems to be an implied Conscious Self (CSf) that experiences the experience. One approach is to say that the Conscious experience and the CSf are all part of a single Conscious Mind thing. I think the best thing to say is that we really don't know how to understand this yet, which is ironic because this is what we are.
The CSf can have Good experiences, Neutral experiences, or Bad experiences. The CSf will try to seek out Good experiences and try to avoid Bad experiences. The CSf must have a Conscious Volition (CV) capability in order to satisfy it's desires. This means that the Inter Mind must not only connect forward from the Physical Mind to the Conscious Mind but must also connect backward from the Conscious Mind to the Physical Mind. With the forward connection the Inter Mind is monitoring the Physical Mind and converting Neural Activity into Conscious experience. With the backward connection the Inter Mind is monitoring the Conscious Mind and converting CV into Neural Activity to move the Physical Body. — SteveKlinko
This is considerably more complete than the mode of thinking I came from originally. Though, I don't quite understand why the conscious mind needs to be something, I guess, non-physical? Why might it not all be neural? — HuggetZukker
MRI machines do study the Neural Correlates of Consciousness but MRI machines do not study actual Consciousness at all. Science has known for a hundred years that there is Neural Activity that is related to Consciousness. We can measure Neural Activity all day long and we will still not have explained how that Neural Activity leads to or produces Conscious Experience. Scientists say that the Neural Activity is the Consciousness. So they say they are measuring Consciousness. It is not true to say that measuring Neural Activity with an MRI scan is measuring Consciousness.Science just denies Consciousness and Conscious Volition even though it is the 800 pound Gorilla in the Scientific room. — SteveKlinko
I don't think this is quite true anymore. Consciousness Studies have existed since the 1980's, and, I believe, came forth along with the availability of functional MRI scanning. Notably neural correlates are studied to find correlations between conscious experience and patterns of neural activity. There is no doubt plenty more research to do, and new, more sophisticated techniques would be great, but to say that consciousness is being denied seems to me like an unfair assessment. — HuggetZukker
I used to hold the private belief that I was neither my body nor my brain, but an immutable attachment to my mind, which I called "consciousness." — HuggetZukker
"Why am I me instead of someone else? — HuggetZukker
it disturbed me that I could never know whether anyone else had a spectator inside them: Anyone other than me, I thought, might be a philosophical zombie. — HuggetZukker
It had never before occured to me that my unshakable belief could be construed as belonging to the realm of superstition. — HuggetZukker
I am only made of my physical self, which is undergoing constant change, meaning I'm basically a new me every day. — HuggetZukker
There's no eternal self, and probably no sharp line to draw between conscious and unconscious. — HuggetZukker
I don't have a really good example, sorry. I don't know whether one can currently know anything about this sort of thing. I'm reminded of hypnagogia, which I have by the way experienced myself accompanied by exploding head syndrome and sleep paralysis.
There is an evolutuionary continuum for abilities such as flight, olfactory sense, social behavior, problem solving, etc. Could the same not (perhaps) be the case for consciousness? Maybe some simple animals have, or hypothetical advanced future artificial intelligences, will have, quasi-consciousness. I'm just speculating! — HuggetZukker
Anyone else could be HuggetZukker
— bert1
What does this mean? I used to find the notion meaningful, because I (more or less automatically) thought of a being as having some non-physical essence of being. It led me to ask myself, "why am I me instead of someone else," but hidden in this question was the actual meaning of "by what means and criteria or logic did this spectator (I) enter this particular life?" So there was the assumption of a discrete essence of being built in.
My current thinking is that to be is to experience, such that one is identical to one's whole experience. Within this framework, X could not experience exactly what it's like to be Y without actually being Y as a consequence. The brain interprets sensory information, steers the body appropriately, and everything it does, including the very important storage of, and access to memory; a prerequisite for the sense of continuous being.
Then one could still ask "why am I me instead of someone else," but within this framework, and presuming that dead objects also do not have discrete essences of being (another topic), the question drops to the same level of meaning as that of "why is the pencil on my desk not a carrot?" (Or why is A=A?) That is a completely different type of question than "by what means and criteria or logic did this essence (I) enter this particular life?"
5 days ago — HuggetZukker
My own view is that consciousness could not be an emergent phenemenon, because it does not admit of degrees. All emergent things emerge gradually (to a greater or lesser extent) because or the complexity of the interactions that they emerge from. Consciousness is one of those few concepts that does not seem to admit of degree. Consider your suggested examples, both of them involve experience, and so fall clearly withing the definition of 'consciousness'. There is 'something it is like' to be in those states, to use one formulation.
That is why I asked for examples of intermediate stages between conscious experience and no experience at all. What people usually offer is examples of very vague and diffuse experience, and contrast that with sharp wakeful experience. But both these are still examples of experience. What I'm after is some intermediate stage between experience (no matter how vague and diffuse) and no experience at all. It seems to me that the concept of experience does not allow for this, and that makes any theory of conscious emergence fatally problematic. — bert1
Anyone else could be HuggetZukker
— bert1
What does this mean? I used to find the notion meaningful, because I (more or less automatically) thought of a being as having some non-physical essence of being. It led me to ask myself, "why am I me instead of someone else," but hidden in this question was the actual meaning of "by what means and criteria or logic did this spectator (I) enter this particular life?" So there was the assumption of a discrete essence of being built in.
My current thinking is that to be is to experience, such that one is identical to one's whole experience. Within this framework, X could not experience exactly what it's like to be Y without actually being Y as a consequence. The brain interprets sensory information, steers the body appropriately, and everything it does, including the very important storage of, and access to memory; a prerequisite for the sense of continuous being.
Then one could still ask "why am I me instead of someone else," but within this framework, and presuming that dead objects also do not have discrete essences of being (another topic), the question drops to the same level of meaning as that of "why is the pencil on my desk not a carrot?" (Or why is A=A?) That is a completely different type of question than "by what means and criteria or logic did this essence (I) enter this particular life?"
— HuggetZukker
Sure, I see that the questions we ask (Such as 'Why am I bert1, and not HuggetZukker?) seem to be theory-laden, and perhaps they are.
Consider, though, how "Bert1 is bert1" is a very different proposition from "I am bert1". I am bert1 tells me who I am in a way that bert1 is bert1 does not.
Some analyse this in terms purely of language use and see no metaphysical significance in it. I do see metaphysical significance in it. — bert1
Another way of approaching this is to ask "By examining all non-indexical information in the world, can I figure out which one I am?" Again, even if the answer is 'no' there is further argument to be had over the metaphysical significance of that. — bert1
I am only made of my physical self, which is undergoing constant change, meaning I'm basically a new me every day.
— HuggetZukker
Materialists are inclined to base identity and being made of the same "stuff." Of course, that is not the basis of personal identity. Identity is more about the continuation of the same, identifiable process. even if every atom in my body were replaced over the course of my life, I am still the same person I was when I was born, because a single life process links the present me to my infant, even zygote, self. So, while I am evolving and maturing, I am not "new" everyday. I am the continuation of my same self. — Dfpolis
That there is no "eternal" you is as much a faith position as your previous construct. Your account offers no rationale for this belief. — Dfpolis
And, there is a very sharp line between being conscious and not. It was drawn by Aristotle inDe Anima iii. What awareness does, that noting else does is make what was merely intelligible, what was only knowable, actually known. There is a huge difference between having and processing information and knowing information, and that difference is bridge when we become aware of (conscious of) intelligibility.
Now you may say that consciousness is "emergent," or that it is "breathed into us by God." There is no operational difference between these views — Dfpolis
What is clear is that awareness, by making the merely intelligible actually known, transforms information from being latent in the physical world to being active in the logical order -- and that transformation is not within the competence of physics to explain, because physics has nothing to say about logical entities, — Dfpolis
I meant that I can no longer see reasons to believe in this immutable, reified essence of being (or let's just say the word - soul) behind the scenes to make us the same in essence from day to day. I certainly didn't mean to reject the lifelong personal identity. — HuggetZukker
Imagine that you can make two carbon copies of me, but only by destroying the original in the process. Now you can ask whether or not I will survive, and if I will, which one of the copies will I become? — HuggetZukker
I can't find where I may have suggested that physics should have the competencies to explain such transformations — HuggetZukker
I meant that I can no longer see reasons to believe in this immutable, reified essence of being (or let's just say the word - soul) behind the scenes to make us the same in essence from day to day. I certainly didn't mean to reject the lifelong personal identity.
— HuggetZukker
But that is all that a soul is. Aristotle define a soul as the actuality of a potentially living body, and Aquinas seconded him. To have a soul is simply to be alive. It is neither some kind of "stuff" nor a "thing" living within us.
This definition leaves open, as definitions should, the question of whether any aspect of life, such as awareness, survives physical death. If something does, it is not a holistic person, but the remanent of a person. — Dfpolis
If we can be aware of some intelligibility that does not require neural encoding to make itself present, then there is no reason why awareness cannot continue after the brain ceases to function. After reading W. T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, I am convinced that we can be aware of such intelligibility. — Dfpolis
One can imagine virtually anything. — Dfpolis
Imagine that you can make two carbon copies of me, but only by destroying the original in the process. Now you can ask whether or not I will survive, and if I will, which one of the copies will I become?
— HuggetZukker
One can imagine virtually anything. Imagining a "world" does not mean that it is actually self-consistent, for many "worlds" we may think possible have covert contradictions, For example, one may imagine a world in which life evolved, but in which the physical constants are slightly different than in ours. This seems very possible, but the calculations underlying the fine-tuning argument shows it is physically impossible. So, I give no credence to experiments that cannot be performed, or to experiments in which the result is assumed, not observed. The whole point of experimenting is to allow nature to shock us out of our misconceptions.
Devoting attention to imagined issues diverts attention from what we actually know and experience -- which alone should be the basis of our theorizing. — Dfpolis
I am not saying you did. I am saying that the physicalist approach is inadequate. — Dfpolis
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