↪180 Proof So...like I say, no one understands it. I just hammer this point because a lot of people on this thread and the other one seem to have "figured it out." If, like me, you believe there's a solution that isn't woo woo, then it'll be neuroscientists - if anyone - that find it. I simply acknowledge that this is my unproven belief. — GLEN willows
In consciousness, we imagine that all we perceive is somewhere outside, whereas the purely neurophysiological operations do not provide any such clues. They are entirely closed off and internal. Insofar as it is coupled with self-reference, consciousness is also internal, and it knows that it is — Pantagruel
Parsimony cuts both ways, Rogue: why assume there is conscious stuff at all? There isn't any non-anecdotal evidence for it ... (re: problem of other minds, etc).Occam's Razor seems to hold here: why assume there's nonconscious stuff at all? Problem solved.
No. However, it's your position on "consciousness" that's at issue, Rogue, so let's get back to that. Non-anecdotal evidence that you or anyone else or anything at all is "conscious"? :chin:Your position is that consciousness is a "folk" term, that will eventually be replaced by a scientific objective understanding of brains. Is that correct? — RogueAI
But you think atoms are conscious, yes? — Bartricks
How do you 'solve' the problem of consciousness by simply supposing tiny things rae conscious and there are lots of them. How does that solve a thing? — Bartricks
If you're happy enough with atoms being conscious, why not be happy with lumps of meat being conscious? That is, why do you think there is a problem with lumps of meat being conscious until or unless you can show that the little atoms composing it are? — Bartricks
Only that's nor reality. In reality the question would be "and why the F are they wet!!! Why is the entire house sopping wet?" — Bartricks
The problem, note, is that extended things do not appear to have conscious states and anything that has a conscious state does not appear to be extended. — Bartricks
So, the problem is how any extended thing can be conscious, not how is it that some are and some aren't. — Bartricks
Note, if you think the problem is 'why are some material things bearing conscious states and not others, then you've already solved the problem of how any material thing can be conscious. — Bartricks
It's not, then, that 'too much' is made of the relationship. It is that the entire case - the whole of it - for the materiality of the mind is based on the fallacious inference from 'A causes B' to 'therefore A is B'. — Bartricks
It avoids the problem of explaining how consciousness is generated from non-conscious things. It introduces other problems, of course. — bert1
It just is. That's the answer wrt consciousness. It's a brute fact. — bert1
Sure. But I do think there is a strong intuitive appeal for functionalism of some kind or another, and that should be taken seriously by any theoretician, even if it is rejected upon consideration. — bert1
That doesn't explain how consciousness can arise from material substances. — Bartricks
Furthermore, at extraordinary cost: for if anything is clear, it is that molecules are not conscious. — Bartricks
Functionalism is not a theory about how conscious states can arise from matter. — Bartricks
It's an explanation because that function just is consciousness. It's a reductive theory. — bert1
No it isn't. Like I said, it's a theory about what consciousness tracks. it's the idea that is supervenes on function. — Bartricks
That is an option. It's one Chalmers considers in terms of strong emergentism. I think panpsychism is far more plausible. — bert1
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