See this recent thread for a discussion about this:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6039/illusionism-undermines-epistemology

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.

Re this:

They believe that the Neural Activity is sufficient for us to move around in the world without bumping into things. — SteveKlinko

The thing is that it seems to be sufficient, at least for some organisms--for example, I think it's doubtful that a lot of insects have something like consciousness, but they have neural activity that allows them to respond to dynamic environments.

We don't know just how similar to our own brains something has to be before consciousness arises. 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).

We don't know just how similar to our own brains something has to be before consciousness arises. — Terrapin Station

Indeed. The assumption that consciousness arises at all results in this very difficult problem.

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.

↪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.

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.

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. — I like sushi

"Consciously blind" . . . are you referring to people who are blackout drunk or something here? I don't know what "consciously blind" would refer to.

Technically speaking I’m talking about blindsight.

Thanks. I'm not very familiar with blindsight studies, unfortunately (to be able to comment on them).

↪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.

Insane Denial of Conscious Experience LOL

So are you differentiating conscious awareness from consciousness or not. I posed that question in my first post.

↪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..

I’m sorry, I don’t understand your point. Perhaps someone else can address it.

↪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.

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.

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

Organisms need to respond to the environment and have ways to learn, and we are used to being conscious while doing this. But is it necessary, or could a zombie do the same things. Or are plants conscious? We know now that plants communicate, share water with trees in trouble even across species, make choices based on information from the environment, though much slower than we do, react proactively to threats...iow they do a lot of things for survival purposes. Are they conscious? (there is a growing group of botanists who think it makes sense to speak of plant intelligence, but I guess I am not going there quite yet, but seeing if those who perhaps think plants are doing all this merely mechanically might then consider that life forms can do things that mirror intelligence without being conscious)

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?

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).

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.