Still, the objects that the concepts refer to are real. — BlueBanana
You don't answer "why does this chair I'm sitting on exist?" with "the question is meaningless because the chair doesn't exist, it's a concept that exists because you named it; the answer is 'because you call the thing you're sitting on right now a chair'." — BlueBanana
patient reports are not trustworthy because a p-zombie would lie and say anything to make it seem like they're a conscious being. — BlueBanana
Besides, is that indicative of consciousness? — BlueBanana
So you're honestly saying we have no way of knowing what is the difference between an aware being and an object? — Wayfarer
You know what experience means. — khaled
self evident concept that no one asks for definitions for seriously. — khaled
I don’t define consciousness as the feeling I have per se. I define it as the capacity to have a feeling — khaled
Disagreements about concepts don’t change the world. — khaled
Only one seven billionth of our evidence for consciousness comes from introspection. — T Clark
I got to my understanding with some help from Lao Tzu. Any eastern philosophy in your porfolio? — T Clark
Not really, not as much as I'd like. — Isaac
Are you that convinced that what you personally mean by 'experience' is the same thing everyone else means by it? — Isaac
This sort of nonsense only ever seems to get by in philosophy. Do you realise any contradiction at all in you explaining to me a concept which is self-evident? — Isaac
That's even worse. How do you identify the capacity to have a feeling without actually having a feeling? — Isaac
I'm not sure what this is aimed at. I didn't say that disagreements about concepts do change the world, so I'm not sure why you would be refuting it. — Isaac
Pretty sure yea. I'll take ANYTHING as long as it can be labeled "experience" in some reasonable manner — khaled
There would be a contradiciton had I attempted to explain it. — khaled
What would you tell someone if they asked you to "prove" that if A=B and B=C that A=C. — khaled
Every field has to start with certain "packets of sense" like these. — khaled
Uhhhhh wot? I have feelings very much — khaled
I wasn't asking if you had feelings. I was asking how you identify the capacity to have feelings distinct from feelings themselves (which you already dismissed as your measure). — Isaac
I think what you've referring to here is more like Wittgenstein's hinge propositions — Isaac
But what I take to be an 'experience' is the logging of some sensory input into memory, but you've dismissed that as not constituting 'experience — Isaac
The capacity to do X is distinct from X. If something has a feeling, it obviously has the capacity for feeling right? My capacity to raise my arm is distinct from the experience of raising my arm for example. But if I raise my arm I have demonstrated the capacity to raise my arm. — khaled
“Hinge propositions” certainly sounds like it but I’m not familiar with them exactly. — khaled
Do you feel anything when the information is being logged that is caused by the logging of the information? I say no, an example would be sleep (logging short to long term). The logging of information can happen without any feeling involved. — khaled
or it is the name we give to the way we, and only we, feel. Which, being entirely subjective cannot be discussed at all. How would you even know my 'consciousness' was the same as yours when we use the term in an exchange of sentences. — Isaac
I don't see how (insofar as 'real' means something like 'outside of subjective artifice). — Isaac
Exactly. So how does the concept of a thing called 'consciousness' which we cannot properly identify/do not understand, make any sense at all. If we cannot identify it, it doesn't exist, things only exist because we've identified some pattern in reality which we think deserves a name. If we cannot understand what it is, then what is it we are we giving a name to?
If we look at empirical knowledge, when we say we don't 'understand' some force, we mean something like that we can see x causes y, but we don't know how. What's being argued here is that there exists some thing 'consciousness', but we cannot identify it such that we can correlate its presence with brain states. That seems to me putting the cart before the horse. If we cannot identify it, how do we know there is even anything there to be named? — Isaac
All I said was that we know that biological processes are sufficient for consciousness, from that we can't claim that they're necessary for it. — khaled
How can awareness possibly exist before any theory, there must first be a theory as to what 'awareness' is in order for us to name it thus. — Isaac
Yes I understand that, but in our discussion we when I referred to your having feelings, you dismissed that as being incorrect as a means of identifying consciousness, — Isaac
I would say that the 'feeling' something is what the logging is, — Isaac
biological processes appear to be necessary for consciousness — Janus
From that it does not follow that they are sufficient. — Janus
biological processes appear to be necessary for consciousness — Janus
How has this been observed? What HAS been observed is that, when consciousness arises, certain biological processes are required. This does not imply that those processes are necessary for consciousness to arise — khaled
I suppose people assume the existence of other people's consciousness partly due to Occam's razor, partly due to everything observable about humans having such similarities that it is natural to assume likeness to one another, partly due to that the same parts of our minds that others can't observe are the ones we don't observe in others, and partly due to the fact that without doing so discussing the whole topic is impossible so the assumption is taken as a premise within the framework of which the discussion is had. — BlueBanana
For example, there's a lamp on the table next to me that exists, but also its left half together with 10cm of air to its side is a pattern that's a part of reality and exists, despite not being seen as any coherent thing by an observer. — BlueBanana
It's the part of mind that gives it subjective experiences and isn't directly observable by an outside observer. — BlueBanana
We know its existence, or at least a single instance of it, from a direct observation of it — BlueBanana
people manage to use the word "consciousness" among others in a consistent way, as if they were talking of something they had by observation confirmed to be the same thing — BlueBanana
Of course awareness exists before theories about it. Perhaps you mean instead the idea of awareness, but even then the idea exists before any theory to explain it does. — Janus
For a start, I didn't say a theory that explains it, I said a theory concerning what it is. — Isaac
Taking Wittgenstein's private language argument, we cannot privately identify a concept in any reliable sense, we have no way of knowing if we're identifying the same concept today as we did yesterday, so the identification of it becomes meaningless - why would we refer to it rather than simply identify all over again? — Isaac
So it is not possible to say that some thing, some particular pattern, existed as distinct from all the other patterns prior to us circumscribing it by language. It's like saying a wave exists prior to us having a concept of waves. All that exists is sea, what shape it is in is irrelevant until we make it so. — Isaac
Really? That's your experience of the philosophical debate around consciousness? Form people like Dennet and Hood considering it to be little more than an illusion, through the pan-psychics, to the Berkeleian idealists considering it to be the essence of the whole of reality in the mind of God. You think people are all using the word consistently? — Isaac
Right. So if all that can be taken as a presumption for further philosophical investigation without even mentioning the caveat, why is it then considered such a massive error when scientific investigation presumes the same starting point? — Isaac
Yes. That is how I see things too. So for there to be a thing in our realm of concepts which we believe to be part of reality, it can only be so on the basis of some such pattern and nothing else. This makes the idea of there being some real phenomena, but one which we can't identify, incoherent. — Isaac
You'll need to be more clear about this, I don't understand the metaphor (obviously you don't mean observation literally - seeing with our eyes) but I'm not sure here what sense or detection it is standing in for. — Isaac
Then I think you use the term "theory" inaptly. A better way of saying it would be " an idea of what it is". — Janus
Why can't we know if we are identifying the same concept from one act of identification to another. Are you claiming, for example, that the concept <two> might be somehow different each time we think of it or use it? What could such a purported difference even mean? — Janus
So, from this does it follow that the sea (or anything else for that matter) did not exist prior to our having a concept of it? — Janus
What has been observed is that biological processes are always present wherever consciousness is to be found. — Janus
What has been observed is that biological processes are always present wherever consciousness is to be found. This shows that biological processes appear to be necessary to produce consciousness. — Janus
Until it's possible to cause identical observations with identical qualia in different people and science is done by experiencing those experiences directly, it's not correct to say that any branch of science is dealing with consciousness directly. — BlueBanana
"Can't identify" as in can't, in practice, so far as we know, identify, and so far haven't, or as in are fundamentally impossible to be identified? — BlueBanana
If such objective reality exists, things in it can be referred to by other means than exact descriptions of structure, such as by their relationships with other, more recognized, patterns. — BlueBanana
for themselves, I assume you mean. Sure. But T Clark doesn't know what Khaled needs for justification. Khaled asked him for the source of the theories. That presumably is within the abilities of T Clark. It is not, as T Clark made it seem, like being asked to walk him through the research. It is asking for someone to specify. IOW then Khaled would have a similar amount of justification as T Clark. Right now, he has been presented with an abstract non-specific 'theories'. He has less justification that TC, or let's say, he has less view of what justification led to T Clark drawing a conclusion.Again, justify is a subjective state. The fact that one person (requiring more information) is redirected by another only demonstrates that that second person does not have information sufficient for the first. It does not tell us anything about whether they have information sufficient for them. — Isaac
He couldn't know that yet. So his, yes, honest self-evaluation, seemed to me a general one. I cannot satisfy interlocuters. And even telling you which theories I read would not do it, so find someone else. I am taking his demurral in this context. He doesn't even get Khaled up to speed on which theorists he means. Perhaps he forgot them.Yes, because the science is indeed out there, and the estimation included was that he could not justify it to Khaled's satisfaction — Isaac
I never even considered that. I did think that it was possible that whatever theories he had read might not actually cover the issue the way he presented it. And that whatever research he read did not actually have as its conclusions what he was saying. That would be my interest in relation to Khaled's request for which theories. Is it a mere impression that that's what they meant? Did they come out and say it in the conclusions of their peer reviewed paper? Who are these people? What kinds of documents were they? There are models out there which carry the presumptions of many scientists but even by the scientists themselves may not be considered the justified conclusions of repeated testing.Your not "taking" their conclusion, and your claiming their conclusion is not justified are two different things. You may not belive T Clark when he says he has read such conclusions. That is a matter of trust, not logic. In a situation like this, I can't think of any reason why he might lie — Isaac
Sure, but often people conflate for example memory and consciousness. So if someone does not remember it is assumed that this means they were not conscious. I have seen this in discussions led by scientists and by lay people and by philosophers (overlapping groups). Philosophers can have a role in sorting these things out. Philosophers can also look at what the research actually shows and what is being concluded because it fits with current models. Philosophers could also look at paradigmatic bias. As I said somewhere in here scientists did not consider animals conscious or subjects. They were considered automatons, or perhaps better put, it was considered the best default position to consider them like this and professionally dangerous to do otherwise certainly upinto the 60s. I think that was a philosophically poor default choice. And I am not just hindsight backseat driving. I was alive then and challenged the idea then. There has always been a bias to consider things like us to have consciousness. Right now plants are moving into a grey area against default resistence. This is based on philosophical ideas that are not clearly to my mind justified. One common one is that complexity is necessary for consciousness. I have all the sympathy in the world for why this seems like a good default, but I don't think its justified. All sorts of cognitive abilities absolutely are dependent on complexity. I have no doubt about that. The question is whether consciousness is in the same category as those cognitive abilities. And since we know that many extremely sophisticated cognitive abilities can be handled without consciousness I think it would be best not to assume they are the same or have the same cause or are facets of the same 'things' or processes. I am sure there are other roles philosophers can have, or really intelligent non-scientists cna have.. And I would point out that your description makes assumptions. Like that consciousness is best sesedescribed as an effect rather than a facet, say.If we want to know why consciousness arose, and by 'why' mean to find a necessary and sufficient set of causes, then we must look to physical chains of events and eliminate each until the phenomena is no longer present. That is an empirical investigation, not a philosophical one. — Isaac
But his post was not a position, or not just a position, it was a response or presented as a response. And when taken as a response, a critical arguement is, and fairly basic things were asked about it, I don't think it held up as a counterargument or response to the post it was responding to. Yes, he presented his opinion. It's a discussion forum. I thought it was an odd response to be questioned about it in that context, however much I truly do admire his open and humble explanation of why he draws the conclusion he does.If, rather, we want to know which concepts about why consciousness arise are internally non-contradicory and consistent with what empirical evidence we have, then such is an ideal task for amateur philosophy to be engaged in. But by that standard, T Clark's position is as good as any other. It is not internally contradictory, and it is not overwhelmingly contradicted by empirical evidence. — Isaac
Sure, but often people conflate for example memory and consciousness. — Coben
One common one is that complexity is necessary for consciousness. I have all the sympathy in the world for why this seems like a good default, but I don't think its justified. — Coben
we know that many extremely sophisticated cognitive abilities can be handled without consciousness — Coben
for themselves, I assume you mean. Sure. But T Clark doesn't know what Khaled needs for justification. Khaled asked him for the source of the theories. That presumably is within the abilities of T Clark. It is not, as T Clark made it seem, like being asked to walk him through the research. It is asking for someone to specify. IOW then Khaled would have a similar amount of justification as T Clark. Right now, he has been presented with an abstract non-specific 'theories'. He has less justification that TC, or let's say, he has less view of what justification led to T Clark drawing a conclusion.
Also part of the context was T Clark saying: you can't know this. I think the answer for most of us would be, no, I don't. But here's why I have this belief. Perhaps he meant the response to implictly acknowledge this, but I don' t think it's clear. — Coben
I understand your position but there's a quite understandable reluctance on forums like this this to engage on constructive theorising because virtually nobody here has any genuine interest in such a process. T Clark has been here way longer than me, but even I am already weary of the "what are your sources" > "oh, those sources are flawed" dance, hence my sympathy with T Clark's position. — Isaac
Notwithstanding that, it's not that we can't know if we're identifying the same concept (we can't of course because our memories are flawed), but it's that we'd have nothing to check it against but our current identification of the concept. Which means we are not creating a consistent demarcation of the world, but rather re-interpreting it continuously. — Isaac
I don't believe it is possible to devise a philosophy using rationality alone. One must start from some axiom which is unsupported. Mine is that there is an external reality. — Isaac
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