A photo-receptor cell is 'conscious' of light. A cochlear hair cells is 'conscious' of sound...etc — ovdtogt

What wayfarer said, plus.....(shudder) ......anthropomorphism: attributing congruency between being conscious of and being merely reactive to.

Yep, with all due respect his book is a waste of money. Another irony of sorts as you point out, includes denial of Being. If he could explain consciousness, then why couldn't he reconcile self-awareness and Being (?)

Some philosophers feel like the more words they write, the more it somehow justifies their position as being a convincing one. Sure, one needs to support and make the case. But when I see a lot of extraneous explanations in order to basically deflect and circumvent the real answers to the questions, it's a red flag!

As Einstein alluded, Dennett being an atheist, I think he has an axe to grind.

Being reactive to is a form of consciousness.

Hmmmm....yeah. If it can’t be proven the one was pissed because he understood “3 more than me” as opposed to just recognizing “that sorry sack of elephant droppings has got my damn peanuts”.....then it cannot be said he was doing math. Even if we grant monkeys the capacity to recognize relative quantities, which isn’t that far-fetched, we haven’t explained that his anger is because of it. Maybe he’s just selfish. Or worried what his ol’ lady will say if he don’t bring home the......er.....peanuts. — Mww

Yeah, Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe you should just read up on studies into animal psychology.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/04/monkeys-can-do-math

And if everything in Nature uses math, and if the math everything in Nature uses isn’t the same as the math we use — Mww

Maybe, maybe, maybe. So far a lot of nature seems to be running pretty nicely according 'our' math.

Science relies on the assumption that we live in an ordered Universe that is subject to precise mathematical laws. Thus the laws of physics, the most fundamental of the sciences, are all expressed as mathematical equations.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13318134-400-is-nature-mathematical/#ixzz67HS2nzv4

A photo-receptor cell is 'conscious' of light. A cochlear hair cells is 'conscious' of sound...etc
— ovdtogt

What wayfarer said, plus.....(shudder) ......anthropomorphism: attributing congruence between being conscious of and being merely reactive to. — Mww

If you believe only the (human) brain can be conscious, you are applying anthropomorphism.

Seems pretty simple to me. If “redness” is the state of being red, “fitness” is the state of being fit, why shouldn’t consciousness be the state of being conscious?

Because it might be a process instead of state. It could also be a property, or force, or illusion. Times two. It could be physical state or virtual state. It could be physical process or virtual process. It could be physical property or virtual property. It could be physical force or virtual force. It could be physical illusion or virtual illusion. And maybe it could also be a physical ghost or virtual ghost.

Am I forgetting something?

A photo-receptor cell is 'conscious' of light. A cochlear hair cells is 'conscious' of sound...etc

So you put a camera and a tv to face each other. Tv produces light, camera receives it. Why would you say camera is “conscious” of that light rather than tv?

And what happens if we connect camera output to tv input? Is that system self-aware then? So perhaps neither camera nor tv are conscious by themselves and it actually takes both of them to form s ‘strange loop’ for the system to awake.

So you put a camera and a tv to face each other. Tv produces light, camera receives it. Why would you say camera is “conscious” of that light rather than tv? — Zelebg

The TV is conscious of the signal it receives from the camera.
The camera is conscious of the light it receives from the TV.

read up on studies into animal psychology. — ovdtogt

Yeah, I will. Just as soon as it is apparent to me, that the mental explanatory gap in an animal with 2B neural connections per mm3*, 16B in the most paradigmatically distinguishing section**, can be bridged by animals with 7B in his entire brain.
*Penrose, 1998
**Herculano-Houzel, 2009

Hey....it’s a free country. Think what you like.

If you believe only the (human) brain can be conscious, you are applying anthropomorphism. — ovdtogt

Correct. But I don’t. So I’m not.

Yeah, I will. Just as soon as it is apparent to me, that the mental explanatory gap in an animal with 2B neural connections per mm3*, 16B in the most paradigmatically distinguishing section**, can be bridged by animals with 7B in his entire brain.
*Penrose, 1998
**Herculano-Houzel, 2009 — Mww

Yes, slicing open a chimps brain and looking at it through a microscope is so much more informative than animal studies. That is the best way to figure out how a chimp 'thinks'.

Am I forgetting something? — Zelebg

Yep.

The human rational agent has but one thought at a time.

The TV is conscious of the signal it receives from the camera.
The camera is conscious of the light it receives from the TV.

You are talking about passively received signal/light in both cases. In that sense a stone is also conscious of light, is that what you wish to claim?

Anyway, you are not addressing the phenomena that is happening on the TV screen, which is integration of the signal into something we can perhaps call qualia. So, again, why would you say camera is conscious of that light rather than TV which is in fact producing it?

The human rational agent has but one thought at a time.

Therefore...?

That is the best way to figure out how a chimp 'thinks'. — ovdtogt

Even if we disregard the fact that thinking requires certain physiological attributes, and merely observe creatures in their own undisturbed environment, we have absolutely no way to understand what we’re seeing about them, except by means of our own rational system. When they do things we don’t understand, how the hell are we supposed to understand why or how they do it? The very idea of thinking itself, is ours alone, so what are we going to compare what we see in other animals, except in relation to us?

The whole point of Nagel, 1974.

which is integration of the signal into something we can perhaps call qualia — Zelebg

You can call it anything you like. I call as I see it. The camera is conscious of light, the TV is conscious of the signal it receives from the camera. As simple as that.

You are talking about passively received signal/light in both cases. In that sense a stone is also conscious of light, is that what you wish to claim? — Zelebg

A stone might be conscious of light. I think it is most certainly conscious of heat, as it will expand in the heat. And it is most certainly conscious of gravity. Yes I like to view consciousness in it's broadest sense. Keeps things simple. I like simple. I am a simple person.

↪Mww
The human rational agent has but one thought at a time.

Therefore...? — Zelebg

Therefore it is non-contradictory to say consciousness is a state of being conscious. Constantly changing states, because we’re always thinking as long as we’re conscious, which is where the process makes its Grand Appearance, whatever it might be, but that just means the state of being conscious changes as much as the thoughts.

Before cognitive neuroscience, this was the established metaphysical methodology for remembering stuff. You know....back in the good ol’ days.

we have absolutely no way to understand what we’re seeing about them, except by means of our own rational system. — Mww

You believe we are so different to chimps that we have absolutely no way to understand them? Well lets stop all animal research then. What a waste of time and money. Completely incomprehensible creatures.

except by means of our own rational system.
— Mww

Isn't that how we understand everything? Or do you know of another 'means of understanding'?

You can call it anything you like. I call as I see it. The camera is conscious of light, the TV is conscious of the signal it receives from the camera. As simple as that.

You again failed to acknowledge the phenomena that is happening on the TV screen. To put some meaning into your assertion explanation is necessary.

How do you define "conscious"? Why is TV not conscious of the light on its screen?

Why is TV not conscious of the light on its screen? — Zelebg

The TV does not register light. The TV does not react to light.

You: we have no means to understand them?
Me: we have no means to understand them, except.....

Please tell me you do actually see a difference there. If you do, perhaps you’ll accept the rest of your comment as superfluous.

The TV does not register light. The TV does not react to light.

TV reacts to abstract information in the form of electric signals and realizes them into actual physical quality in the form of real light. Which is better parallel then for the biological system producing actual qualia out of the electro-chemical sensory signals?

But nevertheless, we can still differentiate two distinct categories of existence — Zelebg

So, what's the problem?. As far as I can tell, no one here is denying that humans have two ways of thinking about existence : sensory reality and mental ideality. Which category would you place Consciousness in : mental or physical --- or metaphysical?

unable to understand the difference between physical existence of actual electron in the outside world,virtual existence of simulated electron in a computer, and mental existence of imagined electron in the brain. — Zelebg

You equate "physical" and "actual", and I agree. But if a simulated electron is not physical & actual, what is it? Why do we call it "simulated"? If a "virtual" particle is not real, what is it? If an imaginary electron in a mind is not real, what is it? I call it "Ideal" : the idea of an electron. These are all conventional dictionary terms to describe those "distinct categories of existence".

Besides coinages for unconventional concepts (see Glossary), I do use some ordinary dictionary terms in personal ways to make a point about my personal worldview. For example, I use capitalized "Ideality" in the philosophical sense of "existence only in idea and not in reality", as the opposite of "Reality", as an allusion to the "Forms" of Platonic Idealism. Is that an example of "malfunctioning logic"? I also adopted a common philosophical term related to Aristotle's book on ideas that were not discussed under the heading of "physics" for my personal worldview. Would you place Consciousness in the category of Physics or Metaphysics?

Metaphysics --- Latin: Metaphysica, lit: "the beyond the physical". Is that hard for you to understand?

Perhaps if you will answer your own question [ "My question then, again, is whether mental existence of imagined electron is like physical existence of real electron or like virtual existence of simulated electron" ] in your own highlighted terms, we can compare terminologies to discover the cause of our failure to communicate. I'm hoping it's not due to immature robotics or a "malfunctioning logic and semantic unit". :joke:


Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

Therefore it is non-contradictory to say consciousness is a state of being conscious.

That is casual speech. There are differences between what is the result of a process and what results from a single state, and what results only from a collection of successive states. In any case, it's not contradictory, just not that simple conclusion to make as was suggested.

didn't consider mathematics as abstract thought. I just googled the definition and used their interpretation as the basis for my argument.

I do consider mathematics as a kind of fundamental law of nature independent from human experience. — ovdtogt

Someone correct me, but mathematician's played around with numbers as an abstract exercise long before they applied it to the real world (?)

In any case there's all sorts of abstract phenomenon some of which we're doing right now in this forum through abstract thinking. It's primarily a result of self-awareness in consciousness. Many examples we covered range from music theory, various forms of human sentience/innate properties of our consciousness (wonder, intuition, will, beauty, love...), and to a lesser degree, using metaphor, analogies, thinking out loud, or anything that takes us from the concrete to the abstract.

So to that end, back to mathematics, we don't need arithmetic to build a roof truss or to evade falling objects in the jungle. Yet we can use a formula for the laws of gravity, as well as calculate rise and run to determine roof pitch. And so from the physical world we can describe the concrete in an abstract way through mathematics only. (And as an ancillary note, we don't need abstract music theory abilities to enjoy listening to music.)

Some have argued that mathematics is an abstract metaphysical language...

As far as reference material, you can shoot me a PM anytime...

You equate "physical" and "actual", and I agree. But if a simulated electron is not physical & actual, what is it?

It's virtual. It means it is represented as information by some other physical form rather than its actual form. Like Pacman is actual on the display screen, but virtual in the electronic components of the arcade machine.

A computer can also emulate another computer, so there exist such thing as double-virtual, or virtual-virtual object, entity, property, state, process, (quality?)...

Or are you saying you can't imagine the p-zombie at all? — frank

I'm saying the concept is incoherent, and therefore as a counterfactual premise it renders the "hard problem" argument invalid.