Most people are not ready for the truth. You have to give it to them in bits and pieces. :)

Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself. — Angelo Cannata

The purpose of science is not "building a good relationship of man with himself."

science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition. — Angelo Cannata

Science is not research that "improves human knowledge and human condition."

It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons? — Angelo Cannata

So.... It's an easy fact. And if I disagree, I'm ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid. The T Clark rule, one of many - If many informed and intelligent people disagree with an assertion, then it is not easy, obvious, self-evident, a priori, or common sense. It may be true, but it's not easy.

consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. — Angelo Cannata

And digestion is the processing of food in the mouth, stomach, and intestines, but it can still be understood by good old everyday science.

But seriously, you're clearly just trying to raise up a fuss. Consciousness discussions go around in circles and never get anywhere. You haven't even defined what you mean by the word. You'll find it has many different meanings.

Not that I agree for sure with quantum role in consciousness, but I find it an idea worth to be considered.
Quantum is one of the littlest form of matter we know that exists and runs into everything.Humans are made from matter also. So the possibility in every human-material aspect such as consciousness, quantum to have some role doesn't sound too irrational at all, when you follow that line of thought.

Neither makes it right of course, but it is an idea worth considering. That's all. Being so aphoristic about it as if you already know what consciousness is exactly and what is made of isn't the right attitude. Cause no one does yet and yeah, Consciousness is a damn Hard Problem. Maybe the hardest one.So we have to be open to different approaches also.

The T Clark rule, one of many - If many informed and intelligent people disagree with an assertion, then it is not easy, obvious, self-evident, a priori, or common sense. — T Clark

Good rule.

Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself.
— Angelo Cannata

The purpose of science is not "building a good relationship of man with himself."

science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition.
— Angelo Cannata

Science is not research that "improves human knowledge and human condition."

It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons?
— Angelo Cannata

So.... It's an easy fact. And if I disagree, I'm ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid. The T Clark rule, one of many - If many informed and intelligent people disagree with an assertion, then it is not easy, obvious, self-evident, a priori, or common sense. It may be true, but it's not easy.

consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met.
— Angelo Cannata

And digestion is the processing of food in the mouth, stomach, and intestines, but it can still be understood by good old everyday science.

But seriously, you're clearly just trying to raise up a fuss. Consciousness discussions go around in circles and never get anywhere. You haven't even defined what you mean by the word. You'll find it has many different meanings. — T Clark

He is trying to make up a fuss? I don't see anything wrong with what he said, but I do see you as constantly quick to disagree and making personal comments.

Not that I agree for sure with quantum role in consciousness, but I find it an idea worth to be considered.
Quantum is one of the littlest form of matter we know that exists and runs into everything.Humans are made from matter also. So the possibility in every human-material aspect such as consciousness, quantum to have some role doesn't sound too irrational at all, when you follow that line of thought. — dimosthenis9

Sure, it's always worth the effort. :)

Neither makes it right of course, but it is an idea worth considering. That's all. Being so aphoristic about it as if you already know what consciousness is exactly and what is made of isn't the right attitude. Cause no one does yet and yeah, Consciousness is a damn Hard Problem. Maybe the hardest one.So we have to be open to different approaches also. — dimosthenis9

You can be open or as close-minded about topics in general. There is nothing "negative" or "positive" about being open or close-minded. And people can have whatever "attitude" they want. An attitude is a very personal aspect; it's like when someone tells you that you need to have "respect" for others. Well, respect is a very personal aspect. I would say the best thing is to try to agree with people at first, at least so the truth can be uncovered. Talking about personal things like what attitude one should have, really doesn't get us closer to any analytical truth.

There is nothing "negative" or "positive" about being open or close-minded. — chiknsld

I see nothing positive in being close minded.

; it's like when someone tells you that you need to have "respect" for others. — chiknsld

Yeah you do.

I would say the best thing is to try to agree with people at first, at least so the truth can be uncovered. — chiknsld

Try to agree when you don't?

Talking about personal things like what attitude one should have, really doesn't get us closer to any analytical truth. — chiknsld

Being dogmatic in matters that haven't been answered yet, is the wrong attitude.
In general from your post, I don't see any common ground to our way of thinking.

Angelo, perhaps you're criticizing neuroscience and not philosophy? The realm of philosophy is where an incredible variety of theories of consciousness reside.

What I am talking about is not morality, it is knowledge, a different approach to knowledge. You cannot gain knowledge of consciousness through quantums and relativity, because consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. You cannot meet yourself through quantums and metaphysics. — Angelo Cannata

To my understanding, this is what the hard problem is about. I might be able to reproduce the physics to create a bat, but we'll never understand what it is to be the experience, or consciousness of a bat. Philosophy is really the realm where there is an insistence that consciousness cannot be captured by the physical breakdown alone.

Was there some type of philosophy in particular about consciousness that struck you as wrong? I just think you're misplacing your ire here.

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness?

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

Indeed. :)

He is trying to make up a fuss? I don't see anything wrong with what he said, but I do see you as constantly quick to disagree and making personal comments. — chiknsld

Angelo Cannata was intentionally provocative and I was provoked, in a pretty mild mannered way. I've read some of Angelo's posts. He has no trouble standing up for what he writes. I'm sure he'll let me know if he objects.

I don't see anything wrong with what he wrote either. I just disagree with it. And I said so. The only thing I wrote that could be construed as personal was the statement about him raising a fuss. Seems like a valid comment to me.

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively. — PhilosophyRunner

In order to understand something scientifically, you must observe it objectively. Science isn't the only way to know things.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is. — PhilosophyRunner

I think you're right that there is, or can be, a conflict between a scientific understanding of consciousness and our personal experience. I'm pretty committed to the idea that the mind emerges out of the nervous system in the same way life emerges from chemistry, but even I run up against that ...but..but...but of what it feels like to be me.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

I don't think it's that hard. Consciousness is more than our experience, it is also behavior. We recognize consciousness in others without having to actually experience what they are.

consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. — Angelo Cannata

So much for consciousness, then.

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?

The first step to understanding something from which you cannot extract yourself is to get a sense your limitations and variability with regard to understanding it. Then use your imagination to hypothesise alternatives to ‘consciousness’ as an anthropocentric perspective, and find a logical reconfiguration of reality that would include consciousness as a limited, variable structure within it - like Copernicus did with our planetary system.

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it? — Possibility

I think this is a good analogy.

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

This is exactly the problem. Philosophy of consciousness seems stupid to me because, even if we can easily understand where the basic problem is, like you did, it still carries on by following the same wrong way. What can I think about somebody who knocked his nose against a wall, but, nonetheless, he keeps going against that wall?

in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively — PhilosophyRunner

Exactly. And, since what we are talking about is consciousness, which is intimately connected to subjectivity, I mean, our human experience of feeling a subject, an “I”, this means that philosophers persist in extracting themselves from within it and observing it objectively. But, at this point, what we are observing objectively is not subjectivity anymore. Subjectivity is the opposite of objectivity. Objectifying subjectivity is an oxymoron, it is like wanting to freeze fire, and nonetheless this is what philosophy persists in doing.
Even now, when I write “subjectivity”, actually, as soon as I write it, subjectivity is not there anymore, because I have objectified it by putting it in words, so, when I try to communicate the concept of subjectivity by writing here “subjectivity”, instantly I am not talking anymore about subjectivity. I just hope that the reader, instead of working with the object costituted by the word “subjectivity” and its objective meaning, will direct his attention to his own experience of feeling “I”, feeling a subject.
This is in my opinion what Pascal tried to do. As a consequence, when you start following this direction, you cannot adopt a precise language anymore: when Pascal talks about escaping ourselves, or about spirit of fineness, this is not, obviously, a precise, a scientific language: it is logical: if we want to talk consistently about subjectivity, we need to put aside objectivity, that is the language of precision, maths, science.
We all know that, once we are forced to abandon objectivity, we cannot establish anything strongly exact, determined, like science is. This, as a consequence, leads us either to give up, abandoning the research, or to force everything again into science (the stupidity of philosophy I was talking about), or to adopt a non scientific language (Pascal).
I think that it is possible to do more and better, we just need to go on in the research, but not with the stupidity of philosophy. We can notice that similar problems are met when we, for example, want to talk seriously, with degrees of exactness, about, art, literature, music. We can notice that, in order to talk seriously about a text of Shakespeare, or about a painting of Van Gogh, we don’t need to reduce it to maths, molecules, quantums. Obviously, art criticism about Van Gogh cannot reach the strength and the exactness of a math expression. But this does not mean that art criticism is a ridiculous activity. Instead, it is what in philosophy is the language of continental philosophy. Pascal’s “spirit of fineness” is continental philosophy. Continental philosophy is far from being perfect, consistent, precise, but it can be improved, we can make it stronger, better, more efficient. But this still needs work, a lot of work and research, that anyway is better than abandoning it in favour of analytic philosophy, that has driven philosophy to the stupidity of persisting in wanting to reduce conscience to maths.
It seems to me that we have no other alternative: either working in improving the non exact language of continental philosophy, art criticism, while avoiding it to fall back into maths, or falling into the stupidity of thinking that we can understand everything by reducing it to maths, that actually is far from being consistent and exact.

As long as physicalists can prove consciousness supervenes on matter & energy, I think they've made their case. Tomorrow is a Monday! :sad:

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?

The first step to understanding something from which you cannot extract yourself is to get a sense your limitations and variability with regard to understanding it. Then use your imagination to hypothesise alternatives to ‘consciousness’ as an anthropocentric perspective, and find a logical reconfiguration of reality that would include consciousness as a limited, variable structure within it - like Copernicus did with our planetary system. — Possibility

We are not within every planetary system. We are actually outside all planetary systems except one. It seems to me that we often wonder what it is like being in a particular planetary system that we are not part of and can compare what it is like in our own system with what it might be like in another given our observations from outside of it and from within our own.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

If you are attempting to describe consciousness, then why would you want to leave it in order to describe it? It seems to me that consciousness is something that you have direct access to and it is the attempt to extract yourself from it and then believe that you can describe it more accurately from outside of it that is wrong. I think that thinking of consciousness as something internal vs external is the wrong way to go about it as well.

I don't think it's that hard. Consciousness is more than our experience, it is also behavior. We recognize consciousness in others without having to actually experience what they are.

Is not our behaviours an outcome of consciousness, but not consciousness itself? For sure we can observe behaviour consistent with consciousness, and I think we will eventually have a really good understanding of the neural correlates of consciousness.

However there is a missing step, an assumption, between them and consciousness itself. Maybe we will wave that assumption always as required, because otherwise we are stuck in out analysis. But it is an assumption nevertheless, is it not?

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?

That is a fair enough question. Maybe I should amend my statement to being a necessary part of the system. From our understanding of the solar system, we are not a necessary part of it - it exists regardless of us.

While we are a necessary part of consciousness - it doesn't exist without us.

Hence I suggest we are less able to observe consciousness objectively, than we are able to observe the solar system objectively.

While we are a necessary part of consciousness - it doesn't exist without us.

Hence I suggest we are less able to observe consciousness objectively, than we are able to observe the solar system objectively. — PhilosophyRunner

I would dispute that. We once considered ourselves essential and central to the cosmos, just as we now consider ourselves essential and central to consciousness. It exists because we exist. If we are ever going to understand consciousness, we need to consider the possibility that alternative forms of consciousness exist that are nothing like our own.

A dog’s strongest sense is smell, followed by hearing, and they are very much social animals, more so than they are logical. Consciousness for a dog structures experience according to social value, smell and sound. Your dog can sniff you as you walk in the door and get a detailed sense of where you’ve been and who you’ve been with. They defer to your sense of timing and your eyesight and they learn to trust your commands, but they trust their own sense of smell above all.

We cannot assume that dog consciousness is less than our own, except by our own standards. In many ways they have a better sense of the world than we do.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote.

But we cannot directly measure the dog's consciousness. We can measure behaviour, we can even measure neural correlates of consciousness.

While we can directly measure the position of planets and their motion, for example.

If I design an artificial dog that behaves exactly as a natural dog, is that artificial dog conscious? I don't think that is as easy question to answer.

Never mind dogs, I can never know how other people exactly sense the world. I can think of my own consciousness and extrapolate based on behaviour I see. But haven't we all had a time where we later found out that what we thought what person thought, was not actually what they thought. Neither of us can truly, precisely know what someone else is thinking.

As phrased, I take the OP as somewhat of a strawman because it asserts that the predominant view of consciousness studies is an extreme reductionism, where the language of science can fully explain and describe consciousness. That seems to be the position you are passionately arguing against.

The first step in this debate would be in locating the person who holds that view and then they can more fully explain why they are not stupid.

My assumption is that many will take a more tempered view and accept that scientific explanations don't fully describe consciousness, although I doubt many will attribute that limitation to the non-physicality of consciousness.

It also looks like (and you can explain if I've gotten this wrong), you've taken an extreme reductionist stance of you own here, arguing that neuro-biology plays no legitimate role in describing consciousness, but that the entire field is beyond science. If that is your argument, then it suffers from more serious problems than the argument you object to, which is that neuro-biology fully describes conscious states.

I suspect if we should hash this out, the answer will lie somewhere in the middle, where people are willing to grant some scientific limitation to the understanding of consciousness, with fairly bright lines being drawn between those who will accept or object to those limitations being caused by substance like differences in the brain versus the consciousness.

The problem is in the ambiguity of the concept of consciousness. For example, a computer is able to react to the presence of a person or even to the expression of her face. Can we call this consciousness? If the answers is yes, then consciousness is everywhere, because everything is able to react to anything. If the answer is no, then it becomes extremely difficult to show the difference. When I say “extremely difficult”, I refer also to Chalmers’ expression “hard problem of consciousness”. Obviously, anybody is able to show that their position is not stupid, since the very existence of the “hard problem of consciousness” is impossible to prove.
In order to talk properly about consciousness we need first to admit this ambiguity and confusion. The first problem about consciousness is in using the word “consciousness” as we knew what we are talking about, while actually we are in the middle of the deepest confusion and ambiguity.

There's no such thing as "today's philosophy of consciousness." There are variety of ideas, some less stupid than others. Reductionists have not achieve anything close to commanding a consensus position, in fact reductionism has been philosophically dead since the 70's, the way I see it.

Is not our behaviours an outcome of consciousness, but not consciousness itself? — PhilosophyRunner

Let's forget about my experience of my own consciousness for a minute. The only way I can know about another person's internal experience, consciousness, is by observing their behavior, including the things they say, their facial expressions, etc. Actually, in these days of cognitive science, I might also be able to learn things based on observing neurological activity with brain scanning equipment. This is something we do all the time in our lives, but it applies to scientific study also.

However there is a missing step, an assumption, between them and consciousness itself. Maybe we will wave that assumption always as required, because otherwise we are stuck in out analysis. But it is an assumption nevertheless, is it not? — PhilosophyRunner

Sure. I make an assumption that the behavior I observe in another indicates that that person is experiencing consciousness in a manner similar to how I do. Is that what you mean? Again, this is something we do all the time in our daily lives.

Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself. Pascal taught us not to escape ourselves through the "divertissement", through diversion.
We can even consider noble, honourable, this pseudo-science, because science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition.
It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons? This is still the typical, prehistoric, rough, mentality of solving problems through "understanding", which means grasping, conquering, destroying, sacking, war.
What I am talking about is not morality, it is knowledge, a different approach to knowledge. You cannot gain knowledge of consciousness through quantums and relativity, because consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. You cannot meet yourself through quantums and metaphysics. Rather, what Pascal suggested was "esprit de finesse", spirit of fineness, or we can just say spirit. — Angelo Cannata

Teetering on the edge of phenomenology.

Science cannot be the "measure of man/woman" because it is an abstraction that merely quantifies the world, and, as I think you are saying, a person is not some quantifiable mass with weight, density, velocity, acceleration, gravity, temperature, chemical composition and so on. A brain, a body, is this, but a person is falling in love, and off cliffs, and worrying insanely, and wondering, and fabulous, and wretched, and personality, and irony and on and on.

Two VERY different sets of descriptive criteria. The latter, I would argue, subsumes the former. Science is not science until someone comes along, has an interest, invents vocabularies, thinks, and the rest.

The problem is in the ambiguity of the concept of consciousness. For example, a computer is able to react to the presence of a person or even to the expression of her face. Can we call this consciousness? If the answers is yes, then consciousness is everywhere, because everything is able to react to anything. If the answer is no, then it becomes extremely difficult to show the difference. When I say “extremely difficult”, I refer also to Chalmers’ expression “hard problem of consciousness”. Obviously, anybody is able to show that their position is not stupid, since the very existence of the “hard problem of consciousness” is impossible to prove.
In order to talk properly about consciousness we need first to admit this ambiguity and confusion. The first problem about consciousness is in using the word “consciousness” as we knew what we are talking about, while actually we are in the middle of the deepest confusion and ambiguity. — Angelo Cannata

Frankly, consciousness is not the hard problem, as I see it. It is the one thing IN consciousness (all things are, no?) that is worse then hard; impossible. And that is valuing, our affectivity.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote.

But we cannot directly measure the dog's consciousness. We can measure behaviour, we can even measure neural correlates of consciousness.

While we can directly measure the position of planets and their motion, for example.

If I design an artificial dog that behaves exactly as a natural dog, is that artificial dog conscious? I don't think that is as easy question to answer.

Never mind dogs, I can never know how other people exactly sense the world. I can think of my own consciousness and extrapolate based on behaviour I see. But haven't we all had a time where we later found out that what we thought what person thought, was not actually what they thought. Neither of us can truly, precisely know what someone else is thinking. — PhilosophyRunner

Agreed. This is why I mentioned a dog’s consciousness. It shows that we cannot use the systems and structures we’ve relied on to this point in order to understand consciousness. We’re not going to be able to measure consciousness in the way that we measure the position of the planets.

How do you ‘measure’ behaviour? As with energy, are you measuring behaviour, or evidence of behaviour from your observational standpoint? And what is the value system you are employing to reduce a four-dimensional event such as behaviour to a single measurement value?

We measure the position of planets in relation to each other, but when we track their motion, that’s a relation of change between measurements. When we assume the position of the measuring device is constant, we just have to take these measurements and changing relations into account. But once we accept that the measuring device is also in motion, then we have to take into account how this moving reference point also changes our measurements and the relations of change between them. Plus, we can’t ignore that we’re also measuring in three dimensions, and on a large, spinning planet, over time. So it’s a little more complex than just ‘measurement’.

So, consider this complex solar system structure in motion approaching another complex solar system in motion, and imagine the increased complexity - this is kind of what you’re trying to ‘measure’ in terms of consciousness. Which value system would you use, where would you measure from, and how do you justify this measurement as indicative of the entire complexity?

Instead of trying to measure consciousness, let’s look at the relational structure. Consciousness consists of an ongoing relation of change between a living organism and its environment. So, there are actually three interrelating events here. You can’t dismiss one without negating consciousness. And you can’t ‘measure’ one event and claim to be measuring any more than evidence of a perceived potential for consciousness.

Let's forget about my experience of my own consciousness for a minute — T Clark

This is exactly the problem: if you try to forget your own consciousness, what you are trying to understand is not consciousness anymore, it is impossible for it to be consciousness: after trying to forget your own consciousness, what you are trying to understand in an objectified concept of consciousness. An objectified concept of consciousness is not a concept of consciousness, because the experience of consciousness is the experience of your subjectivity, your experience of being a subject. Subjectivity is the opposite of objectivity. If you objectify subjectivity, what you are talking about is not anymore subjectivity.