I am in no way suggesting that physical processes are an illusion. — Brock Harding

So patting the dog - a physical process if ever there was one - is not, after all, an illusion (when I'm patting the dog). Else, why does your argument apply to events like patting the dog and not apply to events like electrical brain impulses? Seems a bit picky and choosy to me.

Thinking is not an illusion, the concept that you need a non-physical entity to think is. Makes sense to me in the context of your prior reply - you said 'if conscious, thinking were an illusion then this conversation would be an illusion'.

My citing of consciousness, mind etc is in the context of the dualistic view which I understand is why those terms were created. I guess the term consciousness etc is so ingrained into our modern vocabulary/concepts that it means different things to different people. — Brock Harding

Yes. Even devout materialists use different words for Qualia (Mind, Consciousness, etc) and Quanta (Brain, Neural Nets). Their explanation for the implicit recognition of immaterial Qualia is that such ghostly invisible entities are merely epi-phenomena (functions) of underlying physical mechanisms. Hence, Qualia are caused by physical processes, but have no causal powers of their own. So, Matter is primary & fundamental, while Mind is secondary & useless (illusory).

However, some scientists have concluded that the qualitative Mind Stuff we call "Information" is actually the fundamental "substance" of the real world. Moreover, some physicists have equated Information with Energy, which implies that the same Mind Stuff can be both Physical and Causal. If so, then we could take a Monistic worldview, based on Information as the Essence or Single Substance (Spinoza) of the universe : Enformationism.

In that case, both Energy & Matter would be epi-phenomena. Yet, although I wouldn't call them "illusory", we are only conscious of Energy & Mass as ideas (information) in the Mind. That's because, as Kant noted, we never know the "thing itself", but only our mental model of a material thing. :nerd:

Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.

epiphenomenal qualia :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2960077

Is Information Fundamental? :
Could information be the fundamental "stuff" of the universe?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-information-fundamental/

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

:up:

In short, all the problems of philosophy are dissolved by physicalist reductionism. — Wayfarer

Strawman. :roll:

Let our 'dialectic' continue :chin: ...

(excerpts from old posts, linked by my handle, in the contexts of other threads on consciousness)

"Consciousness" is phenomenal awareness of mind. Mind(ing) tracks and resolves 'discontinuities' between memories & expectations or expectations & predictions in order to adaptively coordinate behaviour with(in) social / natural environment(s). :point:

I do not mean 'not real' by "illusion"; rather I mean something seeming to be something else. — 180 Proof

"Consciousness" (mind), IME, is simply [ ... ] — 180 Proof

• pre-awareness = attention (orientation)
• awareness = perception (experience)
• adaptivity = intelligence (optimizing heuristic error-correction)
• self-awareness = [re: phenomenal-self modeling ...]
• awareness of self-awareness = consciousness — 180 Proof

The explanatory gap is a scientific problem, not a philosophical aporia, because [ ... ] — 180 Proof

'Consciousness is secondary – much more veto than volo – and confabulatory', perhaps selected for as a beneficial social-coordination adaptation which functions as the 'phenomenal complement' to natural language usage. — 180 Proof

Strawman. — 180 Proof

Au contraire, direct quote and paraphrase of the OP, wishful thinking on your part notwithstanding. Perhaps you could explain to our new friend the significance of the term 'explanatory gap', he says he doesn't know of it.

Your "paraphrase" itself is the strawman – caricature – of what @Brock Harding wrote. Note the adjective (re: "complex ... process") in the sentence which you'd quoted.

Perhaps you could explain to our new friend the significance of the term 'explanatory gap', he says he doesn't know of it.

Thanks, I have looked into it and now understand the term.

I should have probably been clearer in my post, but I also introduced time-variant systems mechanics to the mix of things that our brain does which, in my opinion, fills the 'qualia' gap between the physical and non-physical subjective insubstantial-seeming mental world.

I guess I was speaking to that term in the above quote.

Thank you for your replies! I must be repeating countless discussions about consciousness that already happened on this forum. I don't intend to keep this going for much longer. Maybe it'll be my post on this topic.

Could we reword the claim "consciousness is an illusion" as "consciousness is created by neural activity in the brain"? This should address the questions about how the consciousness is borne. Let's say we make this claim because we can see the correlation between neural activities and consciousness: no activity means no consciousness, and altered activities correlate with altered states of consciousness.

In saying the above, we're also saying that nothing other than neural activity in the brain gives birth to consciousness.

If we ask a conscious individual about how they perceive their consciousness, they are likely to say that consciousness just exists unconditionally (like god). We don't perceive consciousness as the firing of billions of neurons.

In other words, the inner workings of consciousness don't seem to accurately represent the physical reality that gives birth to consciousness (neural activity in the brain). This crease a basis for us to suggest that "consciousness is an illusion" (i.e. a deceived appearance), meaning that the way we perceive consciousness does not accurately represent the physical reality of how the consciousness is being borne.

I hope you can follow my train of thoughts, even if you already see some flaws in it. With everything above considered, when you say that "consciousness is an illusion" is necessarily wrong, I perceive it is as a claim that consciousness is not the result of neural activity in the brain. This means that consciousness exists unconditionally. I can see some merit in that, but I'm also not fully satisfied by it. I can see it as a form of Curry's paradox: "If consciousness exists, it exists unconditionally", which means that "consciousness exists unconditionally".

I can agree that the statement "consciousness is an illusion" is somewhat paradoxical, but I don't think that denying the statement straight away is a fair way to end a discussion on this topic. I think a better way is to offer a more elaborate and less contradictory way to think about consciousness.

Your "paraphrase" itself is the strawman – caricature – of what Brock Harding wrote. — 180 Proof

:rofl: Read it!

I believe that nowadays, with the benefit of modern science and an understanding that the source ancient ‘thinking’ that led to dualism was relatively uninformed, we can dispense with the illusion of consciousness. — Brock Harding

As concise a statement of physicalist reductionism as you're likely to find anywhere.

Perhaps you could explain to our new friend the significance of the term 'explanatory gap', he says he doesn't know of it.

Thanks, I have looked into it and now understand the term. — Brock Harding

Good! As you're claiming that science has now dispensed with the 'ancient thinking' that posits an 'uninformed dualism', then perhaps you might say how that same science tackles the explanatory gap or the 'hard problem of consciousness' that was the subject of David Chalmer's well-known paper.

Could we reword the claim "consciousness is an illusion" as "consciousness is created by neural activity in the brain"? — pfirefry

It's okay by me. I am not sure if it's true, but hey, why not. However, and unfortunately, chances are that this change will cause me to not post more, since I only had something to say while the previous definition was in effect.

Good! As you're claiming that science has now dispensed with the 'ancient thinking' that posits an 'uninformed dualism', then perhaps you might say how that same science tackles the explanatory gap or the 'hard problem of consciousness' that was the subject of David Chalmer's well-known paper.

I will see if I can put something coherent together on it. Would you like me to solve world peace whilst I am at it? :)

Could we reword the claim "consciousness is an illusion" as "consciousness is created by neural activity in the brain"?

I guess we could but I think a deeper insight is needed. I think describing the brain as having a 'consciousness' is kind of like saying your car has 'driverness'. It is all about perspective.

Only if it’s convenient. :grin:

It is all about perspective. — Brock Harding

Which only a mind can bring.

I think describing the brain as having a 'consciousness' is kind of like saying your car has 'driverness' — Brock Harding

Without a driver in it? Consciousness implies something like conscious. "Mindfulness": something like mindful. Or possession thereof. Greatness: being great. Consciousness: being conscious. Driverness: being driver?

Why can't the conscious actually exist inside of matter? Litterally. In this light, calling it an illusion is an illusion. A persistent one, but an illusion, no matter what so-called experts say, who try to explain it materialistically, as an interactive process, or processes containing strange self-referential loops. Self-reference seems a recurring theme in the field consciousness. It is by some even considered the defining feature: Consciousness as self reference. Notice the "as". What has self reference to do with consciousness? You have to be conscious first to be conscious of yourself.

Without a driver in it? Consciousness implies something like conscious. "Mindfulness": something like mindful. Or possession thereof. Greatness: being great. Consciousness: being conscious. Driverness: being driver?

According to dualism without a driver would mean that the car is controlled by the 'Subdriverness' and with a driver it is controlled by the 'Driverness' - the driver being the brain of the car.

Thinking is not an illusion, the concept that you need a non-physical entity to think is. — Brock Harding

So thinking is not an illusion - but (according to OP / topic title) consciousness is an illusion, or at least an 'illusion' - which may be something different? Yet we need to be conscious in order to think.

When I think about neurons - that's not an illusion, even though I can't experience the firing of neurons involved in the thinking, which is in itself after all only the firing of neurons. When I pat the dog - that's an illusion, because I cannot experience the firing of neurons involved in the perception and what I call 'patting the dog' is merely the firing of neurons. Seems quite arbitrary.

I expect you're right that you don't need a non-physical entity in order to think. But it does not seem to follow that consciousness or mind or our everyday dog-patting-style perceptions are illusions or that patting dogs is any more illusory that discussing neurons.

Could we reword the claim "consciousness is an illusion" as "consciousness is created by neural activity in the brain"? — pfirefry

Sounds better. What this seems to say is that if you take away our brains and nervous systems we will no longer be able to know whether or not we are patting the dog. Now that is something I can sign up to. It's a minor triumph but a lot better than 'consciousness is an illusion'.

We are not conscious of these dynamic, complex and layered processes. We are only aware of their consequence. For example, when we pat a dog, we may experience seeing the dogs tail wag and feeling the texture of its coat.

We do not experience the light meeting our retina, travelling to our optic nerve as an electrical signal and into the brain structure and IT cortex where 16 million neurons activate in different patterns and register seeing a dog.

Nor do we experience the simultaneous chemical changes in the brain that may alter our mood and the firing of neurons in the somatosensory cortex that create a response that registers as ‘feeling dog hair’.
When we think about the dog, we do not experience the electrical activity of neurons in the visual and auditory cortexes, the prefrontal cortex or the activation of the motor cortex in preparation for saying ‘good dog’. — Brock Harding

Sure we do. Our experiences are what it is like to feel light entering the eye and the chemical changes in the brain. An experience is not the thing experienced but is about the thing experienced. Every thing is a consequence of prior causes. Things are not their causes.

Where is the illusion? Is there not really a dog wagging its tail when i experience a dog wagging its tail?

Just replace "dog" and "tail wagging" with "brain" and "neurons firing" and you have the same problem. By asserting that your mind is an illusion you undermine all of your experiences and knowledge, including those of brains and their neurons. The experience of seeing an MRI image of your brain would just be another of these consequences.

And none of this explains how brains can create illusions or how the substance of the illusion is created by the substance of the brain.

Where is the illusion? Is there not really a dog wagging its tail when i experience a dog wagging its tail? — Harry Hindu

Sometimes it's not really a dog, but a bush shaking in the wind that you momentarily mistaken for a dog. Your experience was real, and it matched the experience that you would have if there was a dog, but there wasn't a dog.

Is your experience joyful when you're seeing a dog wagging its tail? Perhaps a person next to you experiences fear because they're afraid of dogs. Don't we call it an illusion when things appear differently in our experience from what they actually are? Do we ever perceive things exactly the way they are? Can an experience exist without containing at least some illusion in it?

I think there is always an element of illusion in everything we perceive. E.g. does the dog have a color in your experience? We know that the color perception in humans is somewhat arbitrary. It only ties to a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The things in the universe are not inherently colorful, but it's the human brain that perceives them as such. Is it not reasonable to say that color is kind of an illusion? Would this necessarily undermine our experience and knowledge about colors?

I have a feeling that we're confusing verbs with nouns here. The mind is, at the end of the day, a verb (thinking/thoughts), but we seem to mislabeling it as a noun (a mind which allegedly thinks).

Does a verb exist in the same sense as a noun? Can I say walking exists? If I can, does it exist in the same sense as legs do? To the extent nouns and verbs have been mixed up, consciousness is an illusion.

Does a verb exist in the same sense as a noun? Can I say walking exists? If I can, does it exist in the same sense as legs do? To the extent nouns and verbs have been mixed up, consciousness is an illusion. — Agent Smith

The mind exists objectively in the brain. The mind, the noun, is in motion, verbally. Therefore it's a verbal noun. The mind can be seen as that what's litterally in the brain. It certainly is not present in the brain the doctor on TV shows us to explain what structures are changing in a developing child or in the brain the professor on TV cuts in half to share his sense of wonder with us by pointing at the beautiful structures that become visible inside, after the cut of the bridge connecting left and right.

The working brain can't be cut out of the body. Nobody ever has seen a working brain on the outside. But we all know what it feels like on the inside. All matter is charged. A physical truth. It's a kind of panpsychism, but on scientific solid grounds. A dualism. Charge and matter, interacting in space. That's "all" there is to it.

"Consciousness" is phenomenal awareness of mind. Mind(ing) tracks and resolves 'discontinuities' between memories & expections or expections & predictions in order to adaptively coordinate behavior with(in) social / natural environment(s). — 180 Proof

I was not familiar with the term "phenomenal consciousness", so I Googled it. After a brief review, I can see that the theory is more complex & technical than a cursory overlook could suffice for understanding. But the key concept seems to be based on Holistic Emergence. So, on the face of it, their hypothesis sounds compatible with my own notion of Consciousness as an Emergent phenomenon of Information processing in the Brain.

The authors of the article linked below, even quote one of my favorite physicists, Paul Davies, about the "emergentist hypothesis". I don't know if they also refer to one of Davies' cutting-edge concepts in Physics : that "shape-shifting" Information (or EnFormAction as I call it) is the essence of both Energy & Matter, as they interact to form emergent Whole Systems, with novel properties & functions, from a selection of otherwise independent Parts. From that perspective, the Conscious Mind emerges not just from a Material Brain, but ultimately from the Immaterial Information that is knitted-together into novel patterns of inter-relationships, which humans interpret as Meaning. :smile:

Phenomenal Consciousness and Emergence :
In this paper, we discuss the critical role emergence plays in creating phenomenal consciousness and how this role helps explain what appears to be a scientific explanatory gap between the subjective experience and the brain, but which is actually not a scientific gap at all.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01041/full
Note -- Consciousness is a philosophical gap in primacy & category : Which comes first "physical form" or "metaphysical design"? Which is more important "awareness" or "physical substance"? Which is more crucial "knowing" or "sensing"?

Davies, P. (2006). “Preface,” in The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion, eds P. Clayton and P. Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press), ix–xiv.

Life, the Universe, and Everything :
"I think we begin to see that if information can have causal leverage over matter, . . ."
https://physicsworld.com/a/life-the-universe-and-everything-an-interview-with-paul-davies/

Holistic Emergence of Mind :
For example, at levels of low complexity, exchanges of information are merely what physicists call “energy”, which is “doing” without “knowing”. Only at higher levels of intricacy and entanglement do the conscious properties of Mind emerge from Material stuff.
BothAnd Blog ; Post 6 -- Alternative Theory of Reality

'Consciousness is secondary – much more veto than volo – and confabulatory', perhaps selected for as a beneficial social-coordination adaptation which functions as the 'phenomenal complement' to natural language usage. — 180 Proof

I can agree with this assertion. But not necessarily with its implication that Consciousness is a second-class phenomenon in the material world. Astronomers are eagerly searching for signs of Life ex-terra, but ultimately what they seek is creatures like humans, that are aware of what's going on. To discover a Mindless world may be even more disappointing than a Lifeless planet.

My own assessment is that the human notion of FreeWill is "more veto than volo". But what little agency (e.g. executive veto) we do have, is more precious than gold & diamonds, or life itself, to those who can choose the next fork in their path of Life, and to express the thought uppermost in their own Mind. :cool:

PS___I also concur with the "Phenomenal" article, that the "explanatory gap" in understanding Consciousness, is a philosophical quest instead of a scientific gap. Empirical scientists are usually content with dissecting a "problem" into its constituent parts. But theoretical philosophers, such as David Chalmers, cannot rest until they put all those puzzle pieces back together again to form a Whole picture of a living & thinking phenomenon. :joke:

Sometimes it's not really a dog, but a bush shaking in the wind that you momentarily mistaken for a dog. Your experience was real, and it matched the experience that you would have if there was a dog, but there wasn't a dog.

I think there is always an element of illusion in everything we perceive. E.g. does the dog have a color in your experience? We know that the color perception in humans is somewhat arbitrary. It only ties to a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The things in the universe are not inherently colorful, but it's the human brain that perceives them as such. Is it not reasonable to say that color is kind of an illusion? Would this necessarily undermine our experience and knowledge about colors? — pfirefry

Right. So preliminary perceptions can lead to a misinterpretation of those perceptions. Only after you do a double-take and look more closely do you see that it's a shaking bush, and not a tail-wagging dog and the illusion is dispelled, yet you still experience something. So it seems to me that consciousness and its contents (qualia) are not illusions. As you said, the experience is real. It is the misinterpretation of the experience that is the illusion.

Take mirages and a "bent" straw in a glass of water. There isn't really water on the ground and the straw isn't bent. It is the light that is being bent and that is what you are experiencing. Once you interpret the sensory data correctly the illusion disappears. Even though I still experience the appearance of water on the ground and straws being bent, the interpretation is what either makes it an illusion or not. Once I interpret the data correctly, I am seeing it as it truly is. Pools of water on the ground and bent straws are what bent light looks like. Even though what things look like isn't the way those things truly are (that would be confusing the map with the territory), I can still get at how it truly is. How can I still get at things as they truly are indirectly? Because causes leave effects and effects are about their causes. So by seeing the effect (qualia) as it truly is I can get at what the qualia is about by correctly interpreting the causes.

Is your experience joyful when you're seeing a dog wagging its tail? Perhaps a person next to you experiences fear because they're afraid of dogs. Don't we call it an illusion when things appear differently in our experience from what they actually are? Do we ever perceive things exactly the way they are? Can an experience exist without containing at least some illusion in it? — pfirefry

That's if you are incorrectly projecting joy and fear onto the dog. In this case it would be an illusion if you interpreted your joy or fear as being part of the dog and not part of your self, just as we create an illusion by interpreting the bentness as part of the straw in the water and not to the light that reflects off it and into our eyes.

Mind emerges not just from a Material Brain, but ultimately from the Immaterial Information that is knitted-together into novel patterns of inter-relationships, which humans interpret as Meaning. — Gnomon

Information is a material notion. It describes the spatial relationships between particles. I agree that if there is information in motion, like there is between heat and cold, and if this information structures can form correspondences, resonances, with informed structures around them and interact with them, one can speak of conscious life. At the same time you take out an essential ingredient. Consciousness itself. It is like taking out the charges of elementary particles. Without them they would stray in the void, diverging into the whole vastness of space. It's because of these charges they can form structures in the first place.

I do not mean 'not real' by "illusion"; rather I mean something seeming to be something else. — 180 Proof

:100:

I have a feeling that we're confusing verbs with nouns here. The mind is, at the end of the day, a verb (thinking/thoughts), but we seem to mislabeling it as a noun (a mind which allegedly thinks). — Agent Smith

This is literally an explicitly false statement. The word "mind" is a noun unless it is referring to caring (a shepherd minds their flock, or "I don't mind if you smoke"). "Think" is absolutely a verb (thought is also a noun). "Think" and "mind" are not synonyms.

If one's approach leads to a need to reinvent the English language in fundamental ways in order to make sense of one's conclusions, I'd suggest that approach is flawed.

Information is a material notion. It describes the spatial relationships between particles. — Raymond

Yes, but Information is also an immaterial function. In my thesis, Information is the fundamental "substance" (Aristotle : essence) of the world. So, Matter, Energy, & Mind are various forms of shape-shifting Information. That's why I noted that "Mind emerges not just from a Material Brain, but ultimately from the Immaterial Information". :smile:

Information : Shannon vs Deacon :
Originally, the word “information” referred to the meaningful software contents of a mind, which were assumed to be only loosely shaped by the physical container : the hardware brain. But in the 20th century, the focus of Information theory has been on its material form as changes in copper wires & silicon circuits & neural networks. Now, Terrence Deacon’s book (Incomplete Nature : How Mind Emerged From Matter) about the Causal Power of Absence requires another reinterpretation of the role of Information in the world. He quotes philosopher John Collier, “The great tragedy of formal information theory [Shannon] is that its very expressive power is gained through abstraction away from the very thing that it has been designed to describe.” Claude Shannon’s Information is functional, but not meaningful. So now, Deacon turns the spotlight on the message rather than the medium.
BothAnd Blog 4, post 80.

Information -- What is It? :
But perhaps the most fundamental enigma is the ultimate “nature” of Information itself. The original usage of the term was primarily Functional, as the content of memory & meaning. Then Shannon turned his attention to the Physical aspects of data transmission. Now, Deacon has returned to the most puzzling aspect of mental function : Intentions & Actions. For example : a> how one person’s mind can convey meaning & intentions to another mind; b> how a subjective intention (Will) can result in physical changes to the objective world. How can invisible intangible immaterial (absent) ideas cause physical things to move & transform. Occultists have imagined Mind as a kind of mystical energy or life-force (Chi; psychokinesis) that can be directed outward into the world, like a laser beam, to affect people and objects. But Deacon is not interested in such fictional fantasies. Instead, he tries to walk a fine line between pragmatics & magic, or physics & metaphysics.
BothAnd Blog 4, post 80.

This is literally an explicitly false statement. The word "mind" is a noun unless it is referring to caring (a shepherd minds their flock, or "I don't mind if you smoke"). "Think" is absolutely a verb (thought is also a noun). "Think" and "mind" are not synonyms.

If one's approach leads to a need to reinvent the English language in fundamental ways in order to make sense of one's conclusions, I'd suggest that approach is flawed. — Reformed Nihilist

There's nothing in walking that we could consider ontologically equivalent to kidney or a heart. A mind is not an 0bject like the brain, it's simply an activity that something (the brain?) conducts.

There's nothing in walking that we could consider ontologically equivalent to kidney or a heart. A mind is not an 0bject like the brain, it's simply an activity that something (the brain?) conducts. — Agent Smith

You are conflating "noun" with "material". A name, and equation, traffic, an answer... none of these consist of matter, even though, like the mind, all of them can be related to matter, yet they are all nouns. They are all things. That doesn't imply

A mind is not an object (sp) like the brain, it's simply an activity that something (the brain?) conducts. — Agent Smith

In normal English the mind is a thing, not an activity. That's not a subject for debate, it's a fact of the language. Confusing the point that it is immaterial or if it is recognized and defined in terms of activities, with whether it is a noun or a verb, is simply misspeaking and asking to confuse yourself and others.