From "We Are Our Brain" (Swaab):

Everything we think, do and refrain from doing is determined by our brain. From religion to sexuality, it shapes our potential, our desires and our characters. Taking us through every stage in our lives, from the womb to falling in love to old age, Dick Swaab shows that we don't just have brains: we are our brains.

This is nonsense, in the sense that it makes no sense. To Swaab it obviously does as he loves his brain.

Maybe we are our body then. — EugeneW

Under the most serious empirical reduction, we are only our bodies, or, we are nothing other than what our bodies facilitate. Then all the possible questions arising from such a declaration start trippin’ all over each other, and we end up with the gigantic mess that is human reason itself.

”Everything we think, do and refrain from doing is determined by our brain.” — EugeneW

How could it be otherwise? Except for sheer accident or pure reflex, is there anything a human does that isn’t first thought? Does it make any difference to that necessity, that even if he is not conscious of it, it didn’t happen? Does it make any difference, that because, re: Hume, we are habitual creatures, the brain isn’t still in control of those very habits?

Parsimony suggests, and survival mandates, that the brain is in fact both the sole origin for, and the complete arbiter of, human activities, further sustained by logical negation, insofar as without a brain, it is absolutely impossible that a human does anything at all.

Dick Swaab shows that we don't just have brains: we are our brains.

This is nonsense, in the sense that it makes no sense. — EugeneW

The problem is “we”. That the human being is his brain is nonsense, meant to indicate that all a human being can ever be is his brain, which is, of course, nonsense. To reconcile the nonsense, it must be granted, first, that a human being is a rational intellect, second, that rational intellect is predicated on logical relations, and third, that all the terms in a logical relation are mere representations of brain function. Granting those conditions, “we” arises as a logical representation of brain function across the range of human beings, as opposed to “I” for each human being, and the nonsense disappears.

But then, the rabid materialist will insist the disappearance of that nonsense just instills another, albeit different, one, and we arrive right back to that gigantic mess of human reason.

Same as it ever was.....

Consciousness is the brain operating to allow for wakefulness and awareness. There is no "where." It's a made up idea. There is just the brain and its functions. Consciousness is itself a made-up term used to describe something people had no clue about before the past few decades. — Garrett Travers

Yet you use the term to describe what the brain emits or produces. It's not my made-up idea. It's yours that I'm trying to understand based on what you have said and the terms you are using.

Then consciousness isn't emitted by the brain, but is the brain operating in certain ways. You aren't being consistent.
— Harry Hindu

There is no distinction between the two, Harry. The brain emits, generates, or otherwise enables consciousness, just as it does sight, through its operations. Individual networks of the brain are responsible for certain functions, that when operating in tandem with others, produce the awareness that you use the term "consciousness" to describe. — Garrett Travers

The brain does not enable sight on it's own. It needs eyes to be able to do that. Eyes are not the brain, but are connected to the brain.

Light bulbs emit/produce light. Light is not part of the bulb once emitted. The bulb changes states between off and on and when on it emits light and when off it doesn't. The bulb projects light out into the world. So the terms you are using is describing the brain and consciousness like a light bulb and light. Yet you then contradict yourself and say that consciousness is the brain. If the latter, then the electrified filament inside the bulb would be more like consciousness as being (part of) the brain and not something that is produced or emitted. So which is it?

What form does the awareness that is produced by the brain take if not just the brain in a certain state? How would you know that someone is aware by looking at their brain? How do you know that you are aware? Can you know that you are aware without looking at your own brain? If so, then what form does your own awareness take as opposed to the form that other people's awareness takes from your own perspective?

When dismissing the hard problem, I'm not sure Apo has grasped what it is. I say this tentatively, because I find it incredible. I feel bad saying this, because it is exclusionary. It's almost disqualifying people from the conversation, which feels bad. — bert1

A textbook example of Dunning-Kruger in action. The less folk know about brain function, the more they feel confident the Hard Problem is a slam dunk.

A textbook example of Dunning-Kruger in action. The less folk know about brain function, the more they feel confident the Hard Problem is a slam dunk. — apokrisis

I find it amazing that people cannot see that the so-called "Hard Problem" only arises when a third person account (science) is expected to be able somehow to capture the qualitative reality that is first person experience. It's simply a category error; a conflation of different arenas of sense.

I find it amazing that people cannot see that the so-called "Hard Problem" only arises when a third person account (science) is expected to be able somehow to capture the qualitative reality that is first person experience. It's simply a category error; a conflation of different arenas of sense. — Janus

Exactly, why is that a problem? It's only interesting if you try to predict how subjectivity and objectivity will be reshuffled with science of the future, which we don't really have to model in any precision way.

what is the hard problem?

I find it amazing that people cannot see that the so-called "Hard Problem" only arises when a third person account (science) is expected to be able somehow to capture the qualitative reality that is first person experience. It's simply a category error; a conflation of different arenas of sense. — Janus

But that righteous amazement is due to your epistemic framing of things as first person subjective vs third person objective.

You have to believe in an all-seeing God to think that talk about a third person point of view. Do you think such a view exists in any real sense? If you do, then you are simply building dualism and transcendence into your ontology. It is an input rather than an output of your confident arguments.

So I don't even accept your position that first vs third POV is a meaningful epistemic distinction let alone a self-evident ontic fact.

It is in taking the Cartesian hard problem seriously that Kant, and then Peirce, moved on to arrive at an immanent ontology where all talk about any point of view reduces to semiotics - the triadic logic of a modelling relation.

If you believe in the Hard Problem as a slam dunk argument, then you are simply stuck at the simple reactive level of Cartesian dualism. You have drunk the Kool-Aid and feel secure in the familiar cultural trope of an unbridgeable divided between matter and mind, body and spirit.

Try to imagine a world instead where subjectivity and objectivity are reciprocal limits on a common ground. They are not two kinds of realms, worlds, substances, points of view, modes of being, etc, etc. They are instead the immanent bounds on the possibilities that are thus given shape in-between.

This would be Peircean pansemiosis. It will regard both the "material world" and "immaterial mind" as reified fictions - even if they are obviously pragmatic fictions because humans find this constructs so useful for creating their everyday social worlds.

But if you want to get beyond these everyday folk notions of how reality is structured, you have to pull up your big boy pants.

It's only interesting if you try to predict how subjectivity and objectivity will be reshuffled with science of the future, which we don't really have to model in any precision way. — Enrique

I'm not sure what you have in mind here: are you suggesting that experience may somehow cease to be qualitative in the future, or that science may somehow be able to quantify the qualitative?

In Descartes’ day the Hard Problem concerned the relation between the Divine realm and the mechanistic realm of physical nature. Many dismissed the problem by arguing that it was a category error, a conflation of different areas of sense. Fortunately , those who managed to dissolve the problem rather
than reify it won out.

The impasse that follows when you fall into the logical hole of dualism.

For me, employing a triadic systems perspective, the hard problem reduces to the general issue that any rational theory will have when it encounters a lack of measurable counterfactuals.

In other words, if you paint yourselves into a corner, you find that you are stuck. So find a better approach to painting the floors of your rooms.

You have to believe in an all-seeing God to think that talk about a third person point of view. Do you think such a view exists in any real sense? If you do, then you are simply building dualism and transcendence into your ontology. It is an input rather than an output of your confident arguments. — apokrisis

Not at all. the view does not rely on God at all. That is just your righteous projection. The way I use the term "third person" simply denotes the public realm of objects of sense.

Third person vs first person is just publicly available vs not publicly available. Your pain, as experience, is not publicly available. The tree near my workshop is. It's a simple basic distinction; no metaphysics involved.

I'm not sure what you have in mind here: are you suggesting that experience may somehow cease to be qualitative in the future, or that science may somehow be able to quantify the qualitative? — Janus

Yes, subjectivity will change as objective reality evolves with scientific advance, but a domain of practical immediacy remains, and subjectivity as an aspect of what makes us human should be preserved for all individuals on principle, at least that's my opinion. The hard problem placed in pragmatic terminology is simply how to incorporate these new objectivities into culture, really not so enigmatic in its essentials.

In Descartes’ day the Hard Problem concerned the relation between the Divine realm and the mechanistic realm of physical nature. Many dismissed the problem by arguing that it was a category error, a conflation of different areas of sense. Fortunately , those who managed to dissolve the problem rather
than reify it won out. — Joshs

Yes, or the relation between the mind and the body considered as different substances. Considering the mind and body as different substances just is the reification; Spinoza nailed this by realizing that cogitans and extensa are simply different perspectives or modes of understanding.

It's a simple basic distinction; no metaphysics involved. — Janus

You keep telling yourself that. Good old commonsense obviousness.

Do you have a counterargument?

Third person vs first person is just publicly available vs not publicly available. — Janus

Could we say instead that the public realm is the intersubjective arena? Rather than there being the same object viewed by all , there would be a reciprocal coordination among points of view. Each directly sees only their own perspective on an object but indirectly incorporates the others’ perspectives. The third personal ‘same object for’ all is never actuallly seen by anybody but exists as a convenient idealization , the result of consensus.

Yes, subjectivity will change as objective reality evolves with scientific advance, but a domain of practical immediacy remains, and subjectivity as an aspect of what makes us human should be preserved for all individuals on principle, at least that's my opinion. The hard problem placed in pragmatic terminology is simply how to incorporate these new objectivities into culture, really not so enigmatic in its essentials. — Enrique

Subjective experience is undoubtedly constantly changing in one sense, in terms of content, but it remains affective, qualitative. It's hard to imagine it ceasing to be so. But I'm not quite sure whether you are saying that, or exactly what you are saying. Can you elaborate?

Would you understand it?

Could we say instead that the public realm is the intersubjective arena? Rather than there being the same object viewed by all , there would be a reciprocal coordination among points of view. Each directly sees
only their own perspective on an object but indirectly incorporates the others’ perspectives. The third-personal ‘same object for’ all is never actuallly seen by anybody but exists as a convenient idealization , the result of consensus. — Joshs

Yes, "Intersubjective arena" is exactly what I mean by public It can be said that in a certain sense what is seen is not the same object from one moment to the next. It also true that no one can see the whole of an object simultaneously.

Such abstruse questions aside, public availability just means that we can all agree about aspects of objects. Visual aspects are the most determinate. We can all agree on the colour of the apple in front of us; it won't be the case that some will say it is green and others that it is red (colourblindness aside). No one will say it is purple with pink polka dots. No one will say the bulldog in front of us is a Dachsund, or the Mack truck is Lamborghini or the cat is a horse and so on.

If you could explain clearly, of course. If it is some recondite rave based on specialized knowledge that I am not familiar with, then probably not. Dispensations from the ivory tower are not what philosophy is about, if you think it is then I would say you are wallowing in elitist bullshit.

If you could explain clearly, of course. — Janus

I've said plenty. It's up to you to make a case worth considering.

I've said plenty. It's up to you to make a case worth considering. — apokrisis

Make a case against what? As far as I can tell nothing you've said is relevant as an objection to the simple distinction between what is and what is not publicly available. If you want to lay out your argument in more detail. I'll respond to it.

No one will say it is purple with pink polka dots. No one will say the bulldog in front of us is a Dachsund, or the Mack truck is Lamborghini or the cat is a horse and so on. — Janus

Not so sure about that lol Why we need to actively preserve subjectivity as an ethical privilege of being human, because we must have license to think, imagine, discourse, be in error whether or not the mind is deterministic, social conditions change, etc. The hard problem is the neuroscience facet of this dilemma: how do we maintain human dignity as we must mold our species' nature, precedents, minds to theory on a vast scale.

It is a model-dependent assumption that your pain is "in here" and the prickly rose bush is "out there".

How do you check the truth of this? How do you solve the Kantian riddle and so secure the foundations of your epistemology, rather than just claim it is plain obvious commonsense?

It is a model-dependent assumption that your pain is "in here" and the prickly rose bush is "out there".

How do you check the truth of this? How do you solve the Kantian riddle and so secure the foundations of your epistemology, rather than just claim it is plain obvious commonsense? — apokrisis

Relative to the body as it seems to us, the pain is "in here" and the rose "out there".

But I'm not claiming that is true in any absolute sense and so I'm not concerned with the brain being "in here" and objects "out there"; we don't need to think about the brain at all in this. I'm saying that people will almost invariably and universally agree about the objects in the public space, whereas no one really knows if you are in pain, or are faking it. People can, in common, see the street, the cars, the park etc., etc., and agree on what they are seeing, but no one can feel your pain except you.

So, I am not attempting to address any metaphysical implications of this undeniable fact of human experience; whether the objects "really exist" independently of human experience, whether they are real energetic structures or ideas in the universal mind or God or whatever.

Science examines the examinable, measures the measurable, and this very much relies on that basic public availability. By contrast, phenomenology attempts to describe how we experience; and the only agreement possible in that consists in the fact that we all experience, and can reflect on the general character of that experience; so we have here two different arenas of sense-making; that is all I've been saying.

Science examines the examinable, measures the measurable, and this very much relies on that basic public availability. By contrast, phenomenology attempts to describe how we experience; and the only agreement possible in that consists in the fact that we all experience, and can reflect on the general character of that experience; so we have here two different arenas of sense-making; that is all I've been saying. — Janus

You've circled back to your original unwarranted presumption that descriptions can be trusted because ... well things look like what they look like! The only issue for you is whether these descriptions are of private stuff or public stuff.

Do you really have nothing to say at all about epistemological fundamentals? You just damn science because ... naive realism?

You just damn science because ... naive realism? — apokrisis

LOL, it seems you read not what I say, but what you want to read. Where have I damned science? I have a lot of respect for science. Those who damn science often seem to say it is damnable just because it is based on naive realism or materialism. I don't agree with that; but I do think it is based on common human perception, mostly visual. Science studies perceptible objects as they appear to us, so of course in that sense there is an ineliminable subjective (as intersubjective) basis to science.

I haven't said that our descriptions of things can be trusted to be justifications for any absolutizing claims about the nature of reality; in fact I've said the opposite. But what else do we have? Science and empirical observation in general gives us the most reliable discursive knowledge we have, because observations can be tested in the public arena. Phenomenology is not empirically testable like science is, but relies on the considered assent of those who reflect on the nature of their experience; so more room for disagreement there.

Why is it that you apparently cannot address what I've actually said rather than your own cartoon version?

Science examines the examinable, measures the measurable, and this very much relies on that basic public availability. By contrast, phenomenology attempts to describe how we experience; and the only agreement possible in that consists in the fact that we all experience, and can reflect on the general character of that experience; so we have here two different arenas of sense-making; that is all I've been saying. — Janus

The only issue for you is whether these descriptions are of private stuff or public stuff.

Do you really have nothing to say at all about epistemological fundamentals? You just damn science because ... naive realism? — apokrisis

I wonder if Matthew Ratcliffe’s paper ‘The Problem with the Problem of Consciousness’ may mediate between your two views by putting phenomenology between them rather than on one side or the other.

Abstract. This paper proposes that the „problem of consciousness‟, in its most popular formulation, is based upon a misinterpretation of the structure of experience. A contrast between my subjective perspective (A) and the shared world in which I take up that perspective (B) is part of my experience. However, descriptions of experience upon which the problem of consciousness is founded tend to emphasise only the former, remaining strangely oblivious to the fact that
experience involves a sense of belonging to a world in which one occupies a contingent subjective perspective. The next step in formulating the problem is to muse over how this abstraction (A) can be integrated into the scientifically described world (C). I argue that the scientifically described world itself takes for granted the experientially constituted sense of a shared reality. Hence the problem of consciousness involves abstracting A from B, denying B and then trying to insert A into C, when C presupposes aspects of B. The problem in this form is symptomatic of serious phenomenological confusion. No wonder then that consciousness remains a mystery.

“…formulations which start by taking the scientifically described world for granted and then go on to puzzle over how people‟s internal experiential worlds fit into the scientifically described world are incoherent.”

“ In thinking about consciousness, there is a tendency to start by replacing the world as it actually appears with the world as described by certain choice sciences, a description that includes only inanimate, physical stuff. Rather than describing experience and then turning to address the question of how it relates to the scientific worldview, experience is interpreted from the outset as something arising in the world that is characterised by science. It cannot be outside of the head, as there is no phenomenology out there anymore. So it must exist only in the residue, taking the form of subjective states or strange internal qualia that do not fit in anywhere but have nowhere else to go.”

Dennett, in describing his own conception of phenomenology, appeals to the Sellarsian contrast between scientific and manifest images, and proposes that:

“What phenomenology should do is adumbrate each individual subject‟s manifest image of what‟s going on with them. The ontology is the manifest ontology of that subject. It can be contrasted with the ontology that is devised by the cognitive scientist in an effort to devise models of the underlying cognitive processes.” (2007, p.250)

However, each subject‟s experience is not simply „subjective‟ but involves being part of a shared experiential world. A subjective manifest image is not to be contrasted with the manifest image. The “manifest ontology of a subject‟ includes a sense of its not just being an ontology for the subject but a world shared with other subjects. Consciousness was never a matter of some idiosyncratic, subjective view of the world, estranged from all other such views and from the objective world as described by science. Consciousness is not just a matter of having a subjective perspective within the world; it also includes the sense of occupying a contingent position in a shared world. From within this experiential world, we manage to conceive of the world scientifically, in such a way that it fails to accommodate the manner in which we find ourselves in it. Hence the real problem of consciousness is that of reconciling the world as we find ourselves in it with the objective world of
inanimate matter that is revealed by empirical science. It should not simply be assumed from the outset that a solution to the problem will incorporate the view that science reigns supreme.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292369294_The_Problem_with_the_Problem_of_Consciousness

Thanks, that paper looks interesting, and I will read it when I find the time.