Agreed. And none of us know the "how? Agreed?

The "how" is e.g. neuroscience (still in its infancy) and not philosophy per se, which, as Witty points out, may describe (i.e. map concepts) but is ill-equipped to explain (i.e. formally model) phenomena. Thomas Metzinger (neuroscientist, philosopher, Buddhist) summarizes quite an insightful story of the workings of "cosciousness" – from over 17 years ago! – in the video lecture I'd previously linked. The "how" hasn't been a complete blackbox for decades; scientists are learning and philosophers of mind, while assisting, are playing catch-up.

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.

Gotcha! :up:

↪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

Neuroscience is illustrative, however it may not be fully explicative either. Luhmann has an interesting take, based on an innovative brand of systems theory:

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. And that is a good thing, too, for it would be terrible if someone could enter someone else's consciousness and inject a few thoughts or a few perceptions of his own into it. Consciousness, too, is a closed system. But its peculiarity seems to lie - if we choose a very formal mode of description - in the transition from the purely operational closure of the electrophysical language of the neurophysiological apparatus to the difference between self-reference and hetero-reference. Only this central difference constitutes consciousness, of course on the basis of neurophysiological correlates. I do not intend to claim that consciousness is no longer in need of a brain. However, it is of great interest to ask whether we are dealing not just with a new level of reflection, as is often said - a learning of learning or a coupling of coupling - but with the introduction of a critical difference. (Introduction to Systems Theory, 2013)

Since "critical difference" is fundamental to Luhmann's definition of a system, this does seem to beg the question of where the boundaries of consciousness lie, vis a vis internality/exterality and self and other.

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

Not all approaches to neuroscience assume that neurophysiological operations are entirely closed off and internal. For instance, neurophenomenology, an enactive approach to neuroscience, makes the body and social environment an essential and inseparable aspect of neural functioning. There is only one system, and it is simultaneously neural, embodied , and embedded in an environment. This makes consciousness also irreducibly interactive, because it is the integration of all three aspects.

Yes, and I agree completely with the interactionist (embodied or enacted) approacth. However Luhmann is reconceptualizing the system in such a way that it is by definition insular. There are other interesting aspects to his approach, structure is not fundamental, events are. It emphasizes the extent to which our perceptions are just co-ordinations with our own representations of reality (which can still be mapped interactively/experimentally. I don't agree with him on operational closure, but I think there is probably of a spectrum of closure, and he may be highlighting features at one end of it. It is all about differentiating inner from outer. That occurs at different places for different systems, even for the human body. The boundaries of the tactile system are not the same as the boundaries of the immune system or the endocrine system or the visual system.

But Barticks is right about this.

How so?

I think the idea that a certain combination of matter combined with an electric current can produce consciousness is absurd. I also think the panpsychist's solution of supposing everything has consciousness is unwieldy. Occam's Razor seems to hold here: why assume there's nonconscious stuff at all? Problem solved.

Even more "absurd", it happens to be a fact. :wink:

Occam's Razor seems to hold here: why assume there's nonconscious stuff at all? Problem solved.

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).

why assume there is conscious stuff at all? — 180 Proof

Because I am conscious.

Because I am conscious. — RogueAI

Not non-anecdotal evidence; besides, that's what a "zombie" would say.

Not non-anecdotal evidence; besides, that's what a "zombie" would say.[/quote]

Your position is that consciousness is a "folk" term, that will eventually be replaced by a scientific objective understanding of brains. Is that correct?

I’m just really not sure why it’s so difficult to imagine consciousness is located entirely in the brain. Of course we are influenced by phenomena outside our brains, and it enters into, and influences, our consciousness. But outside phenomena aren’t “consciousness” per se.

Plus you’re saying that someone born dead, blind and mute would be “less conscious” than normally-abled folk.

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

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:

But you think atoms are conscious, yes? — Bartricks

Yes

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

It avoids the problem of explaining how consciousness is generated from non-conscious things. It introduces other problems, of course.

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

Because then we have the problem of explaining how consciousness arises from non-conscious things. Which is the hard problem.

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

It just is. That's the answer wrt consciousness. It's a brute fact.

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

OK, that's interesting and well worth considering.

So, the problem is how any extended thing can be conscious, not how is it that some are and some aren't. — Bartricks

I don't think there is a how. It's just a brute fact that stuff is conscious.

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

Well, that's not the problem for panpsychists, That's the problem for emergentists, and it hasn't been solved.

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

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. It is a fact that changes in brain function change, in consistent lawlike ways, what a subject experiences. This cries out for an explanation. The simplest and most obvious explanation is that consciousness just is a kind of brain function. That's the wrong conclusion (and on that I agree with you), but it's intuitively powerful. And it puts a lot of pressure on the non-functionalist to explain this correlation between brain function and what we experience. If it's not an identity, what the hell is going on?

You queried what functionalism was. It's something the brain does, that constitutes consciousness. There are a number of versions. Computationalism is the view that consciousness is brain computations. Another is that consciousness is the brain making models of the world that allow for useful predictions. Another view is that consciousness is the brain integrating information.

My difficulty with all of these is that they are not theories of consciousness. They are re-definitions, by fiat (or by wishful thinking), of what the word 'consciousness' means.

It avoids the problem of explaining how consciousness is generated from non-conscious things. It introduces other problems, of course. — bert1

No it doesn't. You've just stipulated that everything is conscious. That doesn't explain how consciousness can arise from material substances. Again, you seem to think the problem of consciousness that confronts a materialist is how some things are conscious and others aren't.

Er, no. It's how anything that is material is conscious, for our reason represents conscious states positively NOT to be states of sensible things (and similarly, represents sensible things positively not to be conscious).

You haven't solved a thing, you've just generalized the problem. Furthermore, at extraordinary cost: for if anything is clear, it is that molecules are not conscious. Quite how you can, with a straight face, think that pantyschism is any kind of solution to anything is beyond me. Like I say, I think the allure resides entirtely in the fact it has a fancy name. If it was called 'solving problems by making them a gazillion times bigger' then it'd not be as attractive, methinks.

It just is. That's the answer wrt consciousness. It's a brute fact. — bert1

Oh brilliant. Well, if, at base, 'that' is the solution, then you can apply it to complicated lumps of meat alone and be done. It's just a brute fact that complex lumps of electrified meat have consciousness as one of their properties. Done. No matter that this conflicts with what our reason tells us. For we're not listening to reason when reason starts saying things that conflict with conventional views about the nature of reality. And at least by just supposing that complex electrified meat has conscious states but nothing else does you don't earn yourself a place in a mental asylum.

To be clear then: your solution to the problem of how a material thing can be conscious, is that it just is. And if that is your solution, then at least apply it sparingly and stick to supposing that electrified meat is conscious and not that molecules are. The molecules are conscious thesis adds precisely nothing.

Why do you think there is a problem of consciousness? There isn't, note, a problem for immaterialists about the mind. The problem is only one confronting materialists.

And why is there a problem? Wherein lies its source? That is, why does 'matter just is conscious' not fly as an answer (for note, if it did, then the problem doesn't get out of the starting blocks)?

It is for this reason: our reason represents extended stuff positively not to be conscious. That is why we put in padded cells those who think cheese thinks. And that applies as much to ham as it does to cheese. Yet 'ham is conscious' is what you think if you think brains are conscious, for brains are ham.

So, our reason represents the extended not to be conscious. And it represents conscious states positively not to be states of extended substances.

And there are about 10 other arguments - 10 other independent ways in which our reason says the same thing - for the immateriality of the mind.

Therein lies the problem: reason says our minds are not material. Conventional views in the academy say that only material stuff exists at base. Bingo: problem for the conventionalists who prefer to cleave to contemporary intellectual fashions than to follow reason.

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

Functionalism is not a theory about how conscious states can arise from matter. It is, rather, a theory about when this happens. If we have two functionally isomorphic systems and one has conscious states, then the view is that the other has them as well.

Again, that doesn't solve anything for we simply have consciousness posited of one (so, problem solved!) and then a view about what consciousness tracks.

Me: how can ham be conscious? My reason tells me that extended things do not have conscious states.

Functionalist: this thing over here functions like ham. Ham is conscious. So this is too. Questionie answerdio.

Me: er, no.

It is analogous to confusing normative theories about ethics with metaethical theories, where the former are theories about what properties rightness and wrongness track, and the latter is a theory about what those properties are, in themselves.

Incidentally, functionalism does not have any intuitive support, for it seems clear to most that if there was an artificially created mechanism that nevertheless functioned in the same way as our brains do, it remains an open question whether the functionally isomorphic mechanism has conscious states.

That doesn't explain how consciousness can arise from material substances. — Bartricks

Indeed. That's the whole point. Consciousness doesn't arise from anything. It's there already.

Furthermore, at extraordinary cost: for if anything is clear, it is that molecules are not conscious. — Bartricks

That's not at all clear to me. What do you take to be evidence of consciousness?

Functionalism is not a theory about how conscious states can arise from matter. — Bartricks

Yes it is. For example: before matter models its environment and makes a prediction, it isn't conscious. After it does, it is. That's a putative expanation for when matter goes from being non-conscious to conscious.

It's an explanation because that function just is consciousness. It's a reductive theory.

Indeed. That's the whole point. Consciousness doesn't arise from anything. It's there already. — bert1

Why not restrict that to ham rather than extend it to molecules?

Yes it is — 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.

Why not restrict that to ham rather than to molecules? — Bartricks

That is an option. It's one Chalmers considers in terms of strong emergentism. I think panpsychism is far more plausible.

It's an explanation because that function just is consciousness. It's a reductive theory. — bert1

That, true, would be a theory about consciousness. But it is incoherent, isn't it?

My cup has a function. So, a function is a purpose something serves. It is not consciousness. It's like suggesting apples are numbers or sounds.

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

No, you're wrong. Functionalists, wrongly, identify consciousness with a function. It's not a correlation, it's an identity. If it were a correlation, they would be some kind of dualist, not a functionalist.

That, true, would be a theory about consciousness. But it is incoherent, isn't it? — Bartricks

Yes, I think so.

That is an option. It's one Chalmers considers in terms of strong emergentism. I think panpsychism is far more plausible. — bert1

Yes, it palpably isn't.

So, solution one to the 'problem of consciousness' = some material things are conscious.

Solution two - every material is conscious.

Er, how is ANY material thing conscious?