"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.” — Matthew Ratcliffe’s paper

In other words, a science that accounts for experiencing organisms needs a theory of semiosis. It needs to place the epistemic cut (between self and world) at the centre of its inquiry. It needs a general theory of modelling relations to create a meta-theory large enough to encompass both mind and matter, healing the Cartesian rift.

Phenomenology ain't the destination even if it seems the starting point. It might correctly identify the embodied and intersubjective nature of human experience. But as an academic thread of thought, it wanders away into no clear conclusion. It winds up in PoMo plurality and "disclosure of ways of being. Nothing of any great interest results.

I look for phenomenological projects that get somewhere. Like Peircean semiotics, Pattee's epistemic cut, Rosen's modelling relation, systems science approaches in general.

The human mind is the product of four levels of semiosis.

At ground level, there is biology's foundational epistemic cut - the gene~metabolism division by which information regulates entropy. Life as a dissipative structure.

Then also part of biology is neurosemiosis. Genes capture regulatory information over generational timescales, and control only what lies with an organism's own body. Neurons operate to capture regulatory information on the microsecond scale and extend the body's scope as far as the eye can see or ear can hear.

Humans came along and added the further semiotic levels of words and numbers. The first created our intersubjective or sociocultural model of self~world. The second has created our modern scientific and technological model of self~world. The "real world" was enhanced by a "virtual world".

So semiotics provides a rich new framework for understanding life and mind in naturalistic terms - ones where the self~world distinction is bridged from the start and so doesn't build in a dualistic Hard Problem.

...where the self~world distinction is bridged from the start and so doesn't build in a dualistic Hard Problem. — apokrisis

In other words, the obvious is simply denied in the first place. If we dismiss what is obvious, the hard problem is no more. That's very similar to the scientific way of dealing with the problem of time. Deny that time is real, and the problem of 'what is time', goes away. It's just denial of the obvious.

The human mind is the product of four levels of semiosis. — apokrisis

Semiosis can be defined as "the process of signification in language or literature".

Or "an action or process involving the establishment of a relationship between a sign and its object and meaning".

Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind.

Hardly. One is an easy mistake to make - a high level act of interpretation. The other is found to be constitutive of interpretations themselves.

You can unsee the mysterious figure. But you can't unsee the Mach bands. And having noted this interesting difference in your qualitative experience, you would then look to its separate causes. — apokrisis

Can you unsee the empty space around you that isn't empty at all? Can you unsee colors that scientists claim doesn't exist outside of your head? When scientists claim that the world isn't as it appears, what does that say about how "brains" (other minds) appear?

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 know plenty about brain function, but nothing about how brain functions create the conscious feeling of say, depth perception. How do neurons create the sensation of empty space?

In all the literature I have read, none of it explains how it is that when I look at your mental functions I perceive a brain, but when I look at my mental functions, I perceive a mind. You only know of brains and their functions by it's appearance in the mind. I don't I experience the same thing when looking at everyone else's mental functions as I do when looking at mine.

Phenomenology ain't the destination even if it seems the starting point. It might correctly identify the embodied and intersubjective nature of human experience. But as an academic thread of thought, it wanders away into no clear conclusion. It winds up in PoMo plurality and "disclosure of ways of being. Nothing of any great interest results. — apokrisis

It's the only point from which you know anything about the world, including brains. When you talk about brains and their functions you can't help but talk about them from your own starting point. A valid conclusion is that the world is not as it appears in the mind, but the mind is as the world is in the sense that it is not physical, but informational.

Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind. — Daemon

That's the problem with apokrisis' metaphysics, it gets the temporal relation of cause and effect backward. But that's just the manifestation of a deeper problem, inherent within scientism in general, a complete misunderstanding of the nature of time. When physics represents fundamental processes as reversible, it's obvious that they are employing a misrepresentation of time. This is the "denial of the obvious" I refer to above. When we deny the obvious, we can produce a very simple model of reality which appears to avoid all the hard problems, such as the causal role of the free will of the individual. But then instead of having an unbridgeable gap within the theory (dualism), there is an incompatibility between the theory and the fundamentals of experience. The theory does not correspond with basic observation. This is the manifestation of a failure to respect the difference between past and future.

That's the problem with apokrisis' metaphysics, it gets the temporal relation of cause and effect backward. But that's just the manifestation of a deeper problem, inherent within scientism in general, a complete misunderstanding of the nature of time. When physics represents fundamental processes as reversible, it's obvious that they are employing a misrepresentation of time. This is the "denial of the obvious" I refer to above. When we deny the obvious, we can produce a very simple model of reality which appears to avoid all the hard problems, such as the causal role of the free will of the individual. But then instead of having an unbridgeable gap within the theory (dualism), there is an incompatibility between the theory and the fundamentals of experience. The theory does not correspond with basic observation. This is the manifestation of a failure to respect the difference between past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible - as if while the rest of the universe moves forward, some other processes could move backward in time. It seems to me that the whole universe would have to be moving backward, not just different processes within it. Time is the illusion. Change is fundamental. When something changes, there is no sense of forwards or backwards. Everything changes relative to everything else.

Neurons aren't any different. There is a frequency (Hz) at which neurons send, receive and process sensory data. Compared to a computer's CPU it's very slow, but the difference lies in the parallelism, where we have billions of CPUs where the computer has one with 6 or 8 cores by today's standards. Taking two computers with difference CPU speeds and running the same software will produce noticeable difference in how the computer processes input and displays output.

How brains process sensory data is dependent upon the relative speed at which it processes that data vs the speed at which what is observed changes. Instead of trying to track every change in the world, the brain creates the illusion of static, physical objects (like brains). Just as QM has theorized that the outcome of a measurement depends on the measuring device being used, so does the way the world appears is dependent on the sensory devices that are used to observe it (dark and bright, bent straws in water, mirages, etc.). In this sense, physical brains and their functions are not the cause, but the outcome. They are the measurement, not what is measured.

Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible - as if while the rest of the universe moves forward, some other processes could move backward in time. — Harry Hindu

That's where virtual particles come in. Their name is a misnomer. They go back and forth in time all the time. Before real particles came into existence, there were only these VPs.

That's where virtual particles come in. Their name is a misnomer. They go back and forth in time all the time. Before real particles came into existence, there were only these VPs. — EugeneW

Like I said, time is an illusion. They don't go forwards or backwards in time. They simply change.

Like I said, time is an illusion — Harry Hindu

Time an illusion? They must have something wrt to change to. Space or time.

How do you measure time? By comparing one change (the movement of the hands of a clock) with another (the rotation of the Earth). Time is the measurement, not what is being measured. This is what naive realists do - confuse the measurement with what is being measured.

The clock is the time. Virtual particles form a clock, a pendulum. How do you know a pendulum goes forwards or backwards in time? You don't. Likewise for a normal clock. Without symbols or agreed direction, a clock can go forward as well as backwards. A clock itself has no time direction. That's what naive realists do. Assigning a direction in time to the clock.

You obviously haven't been reading what I have wrote.

Like I said, time is an illusion. They don't go forwards or backwards in time. They simply change. — Harry Hindu

You repeat what you already said. In fat even. Why they don't go forwards or backwards in time? They even fluctuate in time.

Virtual particles form a clock, — EugeneW

If everything is made of virtual particles, then what use is the term, "Virutal"? The virtual only makes sense in light of the real. It doesn't make sense to say that all particles are virtual.

Why they don't go forwards or backwards in time? They even fluctuate in time. — EugeneW

What does that even mean - as if time is a container in which things fluctuate? Fluctuation is a type of change. They don't fluctuate forwards and backwards in time (whatever "in time" even means). They simply change relative to each other.

Not all particles are virtual. Virtual just means fluctuating in time with all possible values of energy and momentum. Real particles only go forward (or backward) with fixed E and p.

What does that even mean - — Harry Hindu

That the clock on them goes in two directions. Sometimes one direction, sometimes the other. The clock goes to and fro.

Do you distinguish between consciousness and its contents? — unenlightened

Not really... It is more likely that consciousness is itself emergent in whatever capacity it is so emergent. "He is what he is," so to speak. You are you, singularly, in whatever productive form that happens to emerge. What do you think about that? — Garrett Travers

In your response to unenlightened, I interpret what you say as,

1) consciousness is emergent whenever it's emergent
2) He is he
3) You are you

These three statements I characterize as math identity statements in the mode of,
A = A
These math identity statements are true statements, however, in the mode of monism (which you seem to be propounding here) they shed no light whatsoever upon the above question raised by unenlightened.

I'll give my response to enlightened's question in a moment, but first, let me ask you four questions (If they've already been asked, I apologize for the redundancy.)

1) WRT to consciousness, are you a reductive materialist?

2) Is it your conclusion that neuroscience, as a whole, correctly exemplifies reductive materialism WRT to consciousness?

3) Does neuroscience believe in mind/body (brain) dualism?

4) If so, what's the interface (per neuroscience) between mind & body?

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Regarding unenlightened's important question,

Is there a distinction between consciousness and its contents? (If this re-wording of unenlightened's question distorts his intentions, hopefully, said person will let me know.)

Consider a book of fiction of the type that features bound white pages printed with black ink.

Does the story reside there within the book? In other words, do the covers of the book contain the world of the story, with all of its various scenes filled with conscious humans surrounded by material objects of all manner of sizes, shapes, colors & sounds?

Thingliness - a material object that possesses obdurate boundaries that are discreet & local.

The physical book has indisputable thingliness.

The story that the physical book sources, however, does not.

The story of the book, although filled to the brim with human consciousness & a world of material things, does not really, in its actuality, seem to be sitting on a shelf in a library, bound between the covers of a physical book, does it?

One of the (current) mysteries of consciousness seems to be the self-to-self requirement for transmission of consciousness from one locality to another.

The world of the story seems to reside in the minds of the author & the reader and where, pray tell, is that?

The self-to-self transmission of consciousness between super-intelligent computers may come as soon as 2029. Even so, whether such transmission is via gray matter or via CPU's, the question remains, where is the consciousness?

Now, if consciousness is characterized as being only semi-discreet, non-local & in possession of boundaries as weak as the gravitational force, then the transmission of consciousness, via self-to-self,
endures presently as a mystery of non-local communication, the inspiring progress of neuroscience WRT consciousness sourcing via the physical brain notwithstanding.

Fellow travelers, when we talk about the mind of consciousness, as distinguished from the brain of consciousness, we must begin to talk about the gravitational attraction between two (or more) material bodies. This gravitational attraction, clearly, expresses a non-local phenomenon.

The hard problem of consciousness, as David Chalmers has famously written, entails the mystery of self-to-self, non-local communication.

The mind/body problem, seen through the lens of Chalmers, does not equal un-scientific spiritualism.

Important Answer - The interface between mind & body is the gravitational field.

I am so, unbelievably disappointed in the responses contained in this thread. The endless dismissal of science with absolutely no support whatsoever is borderline sickening coming from a group of people that call themselves by the name of philosophy.... — Garrett Travers

What's your thesis exactly? It doesn't come across in your long OP.

Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible — Harry Hindu

Not one process in the universe is reversible. That's an idealization. All processes are irreversible. These processes constitutes time. The reversible clock measures them. The clock is an idealization too. The only thing that can't be assigned a direction are virtual particles and exactly these are involved in constituting irreversible processes, i.e. processes with a temporal direction.

Material processes can never explain consciousness. They lack the vital element, namely consciousness itself.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Or, in this case, it's just some bubbling neurochemicals....

— Matthew Ratcliffe’s paper

In other words, a science that accounts for experiencing organisms needs a theory of semiosis. It needs to place the epistemic cut (between self and world) at the centre of its inquiry. It needs a general theory of modelling relations to create a meta-theory large enough to encompass both mind and matter, healing the Cartesian rift. — apokrisis

It sounds to me like you’re more sympathetic to Dennett’s heterophenomenology than to Ratcliffe’s critique of it. Would you agree?

— apokrisis

Our body lies between the brain world and the physical world. What if the self is just the body?

Material processes can never explain consciousness. They lack the vital element, namely consciousness itself.

Only the hypostatizing tendency of human thinking, strengthened by the desire to explain one’s experiences, can explain consciousness as some other existential “element”. It can be no other way—in thinking about our experiences we have no choice but to work abstractly, arresting our experiences in mid-career, holding them static in order to describe them, incurring in us the danger of misapprehending these snapshots as stable and enduring things. We are unable to observe a vast quantity of what occurs within us, so we fill the gaps.

“Consciousness” could only ever refer to the human being taken in abstracto. But one look from a different point of view, that is, a view not tainted by a limited, first-person periphery, can better explain what occurs in the shadows of our experiences.

Semiosis can be defined as "the process of signification in language or literature". — Daemon

I'm talking about Peircean semiosis and not Saussurean. So it is about a triadic modelling relation and not a dyadic signification one.

Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind. — Daemon

Well everyone accepts it is the kind of thing that could produce life. Genes are the informational coding mechanism that brings "brute matter" alive, giving it shape and purpose.

So why can't neurons be the coding trick that repeats this at the higher organismic level that is an intentional body living in its model of the world?

It sounds to me like you’re more sympathetic to Dennett’s heterophenomenology than to Ratcliffe’s critique of it. Would you agree? — Joshs

After trying to make sense of Dennett, I long ago decided it was a waste of my time. I now simply have no opinion on his "ideas". Nothing coheres in a way it could be usefully critiqued.

Well everyone accepts it is the kind of thing that could produce life. — apokrisis

Indeed, but life, at least since biologists got hold of the concept, is defined functionally. Consciousness is not defined in functional terms, at least not in the relevant sense. Unless by fiat, which is what Pattee does in Cell Phenomenology: The First Experience.

Well everyone accepts it is the kind of thing that could produce life. Genes are the informational coding mechanism that brings "brute matter" alive, giving it shape and purpose. — apokrisis

Not everyone. Firstly I don't think genes do (or did) produce life. They have vital roles in development, functioning, growth and reproduction, but they must have come along after life had already started. But secondly and more relevant to our discussion, it isn't the informational coding mechanism that does the work genes do: DNA is the mechanism. "Information" and "encoding" are metaphors here, ways of describing the process. But when you've described the process in terms of deoxyribonucleic acid etc., you've said it all. There isn't any work for "information" or "semiosis" to do.