Not sure what you are talking about but I consider the conscious experiences as not explicable by any mechanism. However sophisicated. I'm fully aware how organisms evolved on Earth, but it still doesn't offer an explanation of consciousness. That's why it's called the hard problem. I think life evolved in the majority of stellar systems. There are high chances that there are the right sized planets with the right rotation, and the needed basic stuff. The structures which we call life can do nothing else but evolve towards low entropy states, being situated periodically in the heat baths of the star and the cold bath of the void of night. Nothing special about that. The special part kicks in when the content of these inevitable processes breathes consciousness in these processes. I bet my life that life exist around most stars, and the exception is the lack of life.

The structures which we call life can do nothing else but evolve towards low entropy states, being situated periodically in the heat baths of the star and the cold bath of the void of night. Nothing special about that. — Cartuna

You need to study the thermodynamics of dissipative structures that are enclosed by a Markov blanket - that have an epistemic cut or a modelling relation with their environment. Stop arguing from an ignorance of the actual argument being made by Friston and others. Thermodynamics is a larger story than what you want to believe here.

I'm not interested in the specifics and that's not what this thread is about. I'm happy with the general outline applying to all organisms that evolved. If the right stuff is present slow periodic exposure of it to starry heat and nightly cold (like breathing in and out) will force it to get dissipatively in form, never allowing that right stuff to reach thermodynamical equilibrium because the direction of heat low follows a sine pattern, reaching (relatively) +1 on a star day and -1 in the night, which constitutes a dynamical equilibrium. The total will not heat up or cool down. Small initial structures will diverge more and more from thermodynamic equilibrium. That this evolution is dissipative seems pretty obvious, as the structures develop non-reversible. The structures develop in a mutual dependence. And look at the variety of species that came to be! Some structures anchored in the Earth, others decided to roam around, still others wanted to stay small and tiny, while others grew to immense proportions. A part of them stayed in the waters, another part ventured to the land or air, all in a huge variety of habitats. I can't see why the situation around stars should be vastly different from the situation in our solar system.

The thread is about the explanation of consciousness. However sophisticated your theory it doesn't explain consciousness. You can construct theories of the workings of the brain connected inseparably to body and the outside world. But it will remain just that. A theory. Not an explanation. The only thing that can explain is consciousness itself. The felt experience. That's how you can explain your consciousness to others. No theory can do that. You can say that seeing colors is necessary in a world with a lot of chemicals that contain useful information about fodder, but that doesn't explain the conscious experience of colòrs. The processes corresponding to seeing color could just as well occur without an accompanying conscious experience of color. And that's exactly what is the case if you semiotically describe consciousness. It takes the color away and replaces it by structured processes, which are called an explanation.

If it works for you, that's fine. For me, it doesn't.

You need to study the thermodynamics of dissipative structures that are enclosed by a Markov blanket - that have an epistemic cut or a modelling relation with their environment — apokrisis

Here I totally agree. Some organisms even developed brains to simulate the physical world. Still, there is no explanation of consciousness to be found in Friston. Neither in Markov blankets, however usefull they are in describing non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

The processes corresponding to seeing color could just as well occur without an accompanying conscious experience of color. — Cartuna

This is where you get to explain just how the processes could fail to be accompanied by a conscious experience.

You don’t just get to assert it as a fact.

I'm fully aware how organisms evolved on Earth, but it still doesn't offer an explanation of consciousness. That's why it's called the hard problem. — Cartuna

The only thing that can explain is consciousness itself. The felt experience. That's how you can explain your consciousness to others. No theory can do that — Cartuna

What about philosophical approaches that begin with consciousness and elucidate its structures? Are they theories, and do they offer explanations of a sort? I am thinking in particular of the ones that claim to dissolve (not solve) the so-called hard problem. Their trick is that they trace the history of the split between subjectivity and objectivity to a couple of turns in Western thought. We brought it on ourselves by separating what was never separate to begin with, creating an ineffable and irreducible ‘inner’ realm . A very hard problem indeed.

Baseless assumptions. — Miller

My proposed way of seeing things is more credible and consistent with cognitive sciencce than the "hard problem of consciousness" bologna the rejiggered ghost in the machine partisans like you espouse.

i could just say the opposite of both statements and it would be equally true — Miller

So, as you see it, brain is to mind as " as "Gilligan's Island" is to your TV set. [/quote]

This is where you get to explain just how the processes could fail to be accompanied by a conscious experience — apokrisis

Because these processes are just theoretical constructions, no matter how refined, evolved, sophisticated, or advanced they are. They are projected onto subject stuff that isn't material by nature. So how can they explain it? There has to be more present than matter, no matter how complex the processes involved. Do you really think that a complex material process, with eyes and ears, a face, a body, a brain, etc, can experience pain if hit by a piece of stone? You can of course say it can, and it is necessary in order to react, hence the face to show the pain, express it. You can say the pain is an illusion accompanying these proces, but still it doesn't explain it. It merely puts material processes in the driving seat of reality, hence it's called an illusion. I don't put material processes in the driving seat, though I don't deny them. They are the surface. The content is consciousness.

TV is just a medium. I could compare air and people shouting in it in the same way to the brain and the mind. But somehow, that image is less convincing, not to mention useless. Where is the connection to cognitive science you mentioned? You made me curious.

brain is to mind as " as "Gilligan's Island" is to your TV set. — T Clark

actually the brain is part of gilligan's island, just like everything else.

tv set is a supposed objective reality that is assumed to exist beyond the tv show, but has never been seen

see solipsism and hard problem

Perhaps there is a more fundamental theory to consciousness. — tom111

There's systems more fundamental than conscious systems. Consciousness only occurs in biological systems. One would expect therefore that a complete theory of biology would be more fundamental than any particular theory of consciousness, though one would also expect the latter to be easier to create models from.

TV is just a medium. — Cartuna

I was speaking of the TV set - a fully material electronic device. Inside, it has circuits, switches, and all that signal processing stuff. It is powered and receives patterned

signal input from outside. It processes the signals and provides a patterned, meaningful output. It is clear that the patterned output is not the same as the TV set. So, clearly I've solved the mind/brain problem. Just as clearly, to me at least, I don't need any additional information in order to explain where Gilligan, Ginger, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, the Professor, Maryanne, or the Skipper come from.

I've read various articles. The one book I read is "The Feeling of What Happens" by Damasio. I certainly can't speak to all the issues with any authority. I'll just say that I am convinced that the mind, including consciousness, emerges from biological, primary neurological, processes. Cognitive science/psychology are what we use to study them.

tv set is a supposed objective reality that is assumed to exist beyond the tv show, but has never been seen — Miller

See my response to Cartuna, above.

I don't put material processes in the driving seat, though I don't deny them. — Cartuna

You are arguing against someone else. I’m a structuralist, not a materialist.

So it isn’t rhetorical to the degree there is genuine scientific advance being made. There is a new model of modelling which defines it as physically generic and mathematically necessary. — apokrisis

I understand that you are speaking about more than rhetoric. I was being ironic, or maybe trying to be funny, in discussing the rhetorical uses of your language.

Now you can doubt or dispute this model of modelling. But first you have to show you understand the argument being made. — apokrisis

As I've noted, I've been perplexed by your discussions of semiotics from the first time I read your posts. Certainly nothing wrong with your explanations. It's just an alien way of thinking for me. It sometimes seems to verge on the mystical, which I understand is not your intent.

This idea that neural firing must somehow produce an experienced representation is just a hangover from Cartesian representationalism and the “naturalisation” of that ontology due to the great success of universal Turing machines as a 20th century technology.

But we wouldn’t say steam engines explain the mechanisms of life. So why would we say computer metaphors would have anything deep to say about the mechanisms of mind? — apokrisis

When you say "neural firing must somehow produce an experienced representation," is that different from saying that the experienced representation emerges from neuronal firing. In your view, is that wrong too?

I was speaking of the TV set - a fully material electronic device. Inside, it has circuits, switches, and all that signal processing stuff. It is powered and receives patterned

signal input from outside. — T Clark

Exactly the same holds for air. The direct medium. Like you put it, a newspaper should be comparable to a brain and the stories in it to the mind. Or air to a brain and the songs traveling in it to the mind. The problem is that all media belong to the same physical world as the information contained in them. The brain is no medium though.

Exactly the same holds for air. The direct medium. Like you put it, a newspaper should be comparable to a brain and the stories in it to the mind. Or air to a brain and the songs traveling in it to the mind. The problem is that all media belong to the same physical world as the information contained in them. The brain is no medium though. — Cartuna

I don't get the comparisons you're trying to make. A newspaper is not a processing device. Air is not a processing device. A TV set is not a medium. It's just a box of wire and plastic.

I have a feeling you repeating your argument then me repeating mine again won't get us anywhere. Let's not do that.

I don't get the comparisons you're trying to make. A newspaper is not a processing device. Air is not a processing device. A TV set is not a medium. It's just a box of wire and plastic. — T Clark

A TV, like the computer you are talking with me now, is just a medium. Air won't do because the distance between is is too big, I think. We could check by screaming out of the window loudly. A TV needs all kinds of internal machinery to translate the signals of a faraway event (even in the past, when recorded) to make it pallatable for eyes and ears, like a newspaper uses printed words. The programs sent are different each time, like the stories told in newspapers (though many times the stuff looks awfully uniform). Like the stories told in air. The fact that a TV and computer are electronics, wires, and integrated circuitry with an interactive feature doesn't mean they are no media. They are mass-media, in fact. Like the newspapers.

How can I repeat myself if I have responded only once to you?

You are arguing against someone else. I’m a structuralist, not a materialist. — apokrisis

Structuralists look at the structure of matter. Their relations. Without matter there can be no structure. Even if it could, structure can't explain consciousness. It can say if it's present though, say by looking at structures in the nervous system. I'm not saying studying structures in the brain, body or physical world is useless either. It can be very enlightening. But not to explain seeing red or hearing music, or seeing a dream. You could ask how structured processes could ever fail to be accompanied by consciousness. But you could also ask how consciousness ever could exist without the patterned structures they are embedded in. Looking at the structures only will not do. I can imagine all structured neuron activity taking place without a conscious experience. It would be very strange though then, if for example a child cried after she felt and hurt her knee.

A TV, like the computer you are talking with me now, is just a medium. — Cartuna

By itself it is not a medium. It only is when included in a network of input and power. By itself, it's ballast. I have a TV in the room I'm sitting in now - unplugged and not hooked up to cable or an antenna. If I drop it in the water it will go "kerplunk." How is that different from a brain disconnected from it's oxygen and nutrient sources and sensory input? The only difference is the loudness of the kerplunk.

How can I repeat myself if I have responded only once to you? — Cartuna

You're right. I was getting my posts with Miller mixed up with yours.

signal input from outside. — T Clark

outside? you cant see outside your consciousness. see solipsism

everything is inside it. part of the tv show

you imagine a magical tv set somewhere outside. this imagined tv set is in your mind which is also inside.

By itself it is not a medium. — T Clark

It is. There is no information passing it though. Like the silent air at night. A brain is no transmitting medium. Both will go kerplunk in water. The kerplunk varies, depending on brain and TV size.

outside? you cant see outside your consciousness. see solipsism — Miller

I think you and I have been having different discussions with each other.

Now I can say this:

I have a feeling you repeating your argument then me repeating mine again won't get us anywhere. Let's not do that. — T Clark

Now I can say this:

I have a feeling you repeating your argument then me repeating mine again won't get us anywhere. Let's not do that.
— T Clark — T Clark

This was intended for @Cartuna.

Now I can say this:

I have a feeling you repeating your argument then me repeating mine again won't get us anywhere. Let's not do that.
— T Clark
— T Clark

This was intended for Cartuna. — T Clark

Things are getting quite complicated now...

Without matter there can be no structure. — Cartuna

A naive realist might say that. A structural realist adopts a more sophisticated ontology.

I can imagine all structured neuron activity taking place without a conscious experience. — Cartuna

You are free to imagine whatever you want. I simply ask for a clear reason why all that structured action would fail to produce what it ordinarily produces.

And again, you are showing that you are unable to supply a causal argument for why the same process might sometimes be conscious, sometimes result in a zombie.

Why would a normally developing brain in a normally developing human fail to be conscious in the normal developing way? Answer me that. Don’t simply make extravagant claims of what you could imagine.

By itself, it's ballast. — T Clark

The difference between a TV is that a working brain provides you with a conscious world. A working brain cannot be seen outside a living body. Every working TV set or functioning computer, no matter how complicated or however intelligent artificially made, and no matter in what artificial robot body placed, are just media through which information is pushed under the influence of voltage and program.

A naive realist might say that. A structural realist adopts a more sophisticated ontology. — apokrisis

That makes the reality referred to not less real. However complicated the strucures are, they still need stuff out of which the patterns and structures are formed.

You are free to imagine whatever you want. I simply ask for a clear reason why all that structured action would fail to produce what it ordinarily produces. — apokrisis

Here you presuppose that it produces consciousness. Which is exactly the question. If one elementary particle is just matter, why shouldn't a highly structured bunch of them not just be that? Structured and coherent processes are no guarantee for consciousness. A vital component is missing.

Why would a normally developing brain in a normally developing human fail to be conscious in the normal developing way? Answer me that. Don’t simply make extravagant claims of what you could imagine. — apokrisis

Where do I make extravagant claims. "Naive", "extravagant", "fail", "unable", to mention a few words of the vocabulary you use in battling me. All the more proof that your outlook on the problem is in deep trouble. Yes I am unable to explain consciousness. Because it isn't explainable.