wise claims about the world (philosophy). — Nickolasgaspar

You will always reflexively equate philosophy with naturalism.

reason was not the mind property in question here. — Nickolasgaspar

I mention it because of the very well-known arguments about the apparent conflicts between Darwinian naturalism and the faculty of reason, although if you're not familiar with them, I won't go to the trouble of trying to explain them.

Nevertheless, in a philosophy forum, one that features people interested say in Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein and so on in the tradition, it is quite important to deal with these why questions, to differing degrees and with different perspectives in mind. It's built into the fabric of the discipline. — Manuel

I don't disagree with the traditional aspect of it. I (and I can only speak for myself) find it a waste of time trying to address unanswerable "why" questions. Its feels like all philosophers are in a race to produce the most unanswerable question in order to guarantee the immortality of their names in the Academia.
The bigger issue I have with this discussion is that most Philosophers are more interested in chronicling "who said what and when" than studying the latest breakthroughs of the respective scientific field.

And it is a very good list, and I agree that all these things are quite baffling, as I think existence should be.

I am surely not going to get in the way of a scientists and suggest them what they should, or should not do. Science has been a spectacular success story since it lifted off in the 17th century and it should continue as far as it can. — Manuel

Its good to know that you also feel baffled by the properties of matter in general. ITs sad to see most people ignoring the real "magic" in our world.

Now, if a scientists were to say, that free will is an illusion or that we don't actually perceive colour, we only think we do, then the philosophers can have say, and rightly so, in my opinion. — Manuel

-They can and should have a say, but only after justifying their conclusions in relations to the facts made available by scientists.

You will always reflexively equate philosophy with naturalism. — Wayfarer

It depends from the type of naturalism .If you are referring to Philosophical naturalism, then you are wrong.
I am a Methodological Naturalist, so Philosophy for me has to remain metaphysically neutral

.

I mention it because of the very well-known arguments about the apparent conflicts between Darwinian naturalism and the faculty of reason, although if you're not familiar with them, I won't go to the trouble of trying to explain them. — Wayfarer

Now we are on a different topic without making any acknowledgements for the previous theses....
BTW there aren't any real conflicts between Darwinian Naturalism and reason.

I am a Methodological Naturalist, — Nickolasgaspar

That's what I meant.

there aren't any real conflicts between Darwinian Naturalism and reason. — Nickolasgaspar

Have you ever read anything about that topic? Because it seems to me closely connected to the hard problem argument.

Have you ever read anything about that topic? Because it seems to me closely connected to the hard problem argument. — Wayfarer

If the conflict is closely related to a made up "hard problem" based on ''why'' questions, things don't look promising.
Can you define what Darwinian Naturalism means to you ,because I had problems in the past to agree on a definition.

Neuroscience has nothing to say about phenomenal consciousness. — bert1

:roll: I can think of several significant cognitive neuroscientists who have plenty to say which is informed by observational data on this topic, unlike philosophers who only speculate about their anecdotal, folk ideas of "phenomenal consciousness". Maybe you should read some of the relevant scientific literature, bert.

"How does brain function necessitate consciousness? What is it about brain function that means it can't happen without consciousness also happening?" — bert1

Hi. If consciousness is understood as an immaterial ghost in the machine which is invisible to all scientific instruments, we'd have no way to verify that consciousness ever happened along with brain function -- except possibly in our own case, though even here there are semantic issues.

What can we safely claim here ? There are living people who tend to have brains and tend to be taken as conscious in the everyday sense. But they are given general anesthetic for certain surgeries, and we bury them when they are dead because we don't think they will mind -- are no longer 'conscious.'

Descartes helped get people thinking there was an immaterial stuff haunting their skull, because they could think without making much noise. But it's not as private as you and I would like to be in there...

https://news.mit.edu/2018/computer-system-transcribes-words-users-speak-silently-0404

I don't see why more and more powerful models couldn't get better and better at predicting this or that person's next speech act (including muffled/concealed speech in the throat or even the brain.)

Of course, and philosophy wouldn't be nearly as interesting if we all agreed. I find unanswerable questions - especially in the pursuit of the thinking that leads to it, to be quite exquisite reasoning and I admire that process because I find a certain beauty to it and it leads to epistemic humility (not addressing you in any way as arrogant or anything remotely like that, just to be clear.)

However, I completely understand with, sympathize and enjoy people who think this specific aspect of philosophy to be a waste of time. It can be, if you don't find it interesting, it is.

As for the last part, sure, they need to present the relevant evidence for big claims, but I do believe there is a rather nebulous territory in which some scientific arguments can clash productively with philosophy. But some areas not, like, it would be silly to deny QM because you don't think it's coherent, or that someone would dispute that the amygdala plays a role in anxiety.

So, it's complex. :)

I'm a bit late to this party, but I have quickly read through the posts. First, I appreciate you've avoided the cliche term usually used for this issue, although others have used in this thread. It is generally used to avoid having to actually define what the issue is.

You give a long list of conscious processes where cognitive science is relevant. Chalmers has a similar list:

The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:
the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
the integration of information by a cognitive system;
the reportability of mental states;
the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
the focus of attention;
the deliberate control of behavior;
the difference between wakefulness and sleep. — Chalmers - Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness

But:

Neuroscience has nothing to say about phenomenal consciousness. — bert1

Here's what Chalmers has to say about what he calls "experience" and what you call "phenomenal consciousness:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience...

...Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. — Chalmers again

It doesn't seem objectively unreasonable to me that physical processing should give rise to a rich inner life. It seems clear to me that it can and it does. Note I said "clear," not "obvious" or "established." I certainly could be wrong. I look for reasons why it should seem unreasonable to others and I can come up with two answers. 1) Cognitive scientists seem to be a long way from identifying the neurological mechanisms that manifest as experience. I'm not really sure how true that is, but I don't think it's a good reason. 2) People just can't imagine how something so spectacular, important, and intimate as what it is like to be us could just be something mechanical.

And of course the mind, and in particular experience, isn't just something mechanical, just the operation of the nervous system, any more than life is just chemistry. The mind emerges out of neurology. The mind operates according to different rules than our nervous system. We call the study of the mind "psychology." I don't have any problem conceiving of that, even though I don't understand the mechanisms by which it could happen.

If there are other reasons for rejecting a neurological basis for phenomenal consciousness, you haven't provided it. You've only really found fault with reasons why scientists say there is one. Your argument is primarily a matter of language, not science.

As for the function issue, we're not really talking about brain function, we're talking about mind function. I'm positing that not neurological function but neurological mechanism and process are the basis of mind function. I think most would agree that phenomenal consciousness is a valuable mental resource and capability.

The potential problem here is that if there is such a thing as first person consciousness, and if first person consciousness is essentially private, then by necessity there can’t be any sort of public, scientific evidence of or explanation for it. — Michael

Consciousness is basically a behavior. The only reason it feels special is because it seems, as you note, private. But it's not really. We see the results of it in other people all the time, in their public behavior and communication. It is completely common in science, medicine, and everyday life to draw conclusions about things we can't see directly by observing external signs. With humans above a certain age we have the added advantage of being able to communicate directly with the person using language.

This is a great question, and I'm sorry to say I can't even give you an example bare-bones answer. Absolutely no idea. — bert1

Then how do you know that the answers given so far are unsatisfactory. If I went into a room searching for something and you asked what it was I was looking for, if I said "I don't know", you might reasonable ask "then how do you know you haven't found it yet?"

The standard answer has already been given by (albeit with considerably more confidence than I would have given it). There's some evolutionary advantage - where "some" has been expounded at length by various authors, not all agreeing.

It's the standard answer to why we have any feature we have. either random mutation that was simply 'not so bad as to get in the way', or one which conferred an actual advantage (either niche or sexual section).

So perhaps it might trigger something for you to say why that answer isn't an answer for you.

if there is such a thing as first person consciousness, and if first person consciousness is essentially private, then by necessity there can’t be any sort of public, scientific evidence of or explanation for it. — Michael

I'm not seeing how that follows. I can see how, if a thing were inherently and unassailably private we couldn't publicly discuss what is is, but I don't see how we couldn't publicly discuss how it came about or what purpose it might serve.

If there were some completely secret contents of a black box but if every time I added a coin to that box it spat out a can of beer, I don't need to know what's in the box to have a reasonable scientific theory that the box is designed (evolved, if natural) to vend beer, and that it does so in response to money being placed in it. I could experiment with different coinage, different currencies. See if there's a relationship between coin and beer type... I could develop a dozen perfectly valid, sound theories about this box, how and why it works, all without having a clue what's in it.

I find your arguments very reasonable and pure. In my opinion the problem rises when we focus on specific questions like "why we exist" or "why should physical processes give rise to conscious experience". For such "why" questions (asserting teleology and meaning) any answer can be correct! lets say" Maybe the universe wanted plastic. A species being able to produce some would be the way to go".
Jokes aside , if we look closer in what motivates people to come up with this type of questions we will find our epistemic and existential anxiety pulling all the strings (Terror Management theory). This is why we don't find "unanswerable question" on digestion or bowel movement but on things that allow ideas like immortality or special nature to sneak in.
So I also appreciate these type of "question" for a different reason! They reveal more things about our psychology than the actual phenomenon in question.!
We place mysteries where answers are a threat to the "magic" of our existence. We avoid linking our mental existence with biology and the expiration date it comes with at any cost.
The main issue I have with these questions ( "hard problem" of consciousness) is that they are based on what people personally find unreasonable or impossible to be caused/produced by physical means(argument from ignorance fallacy), while others look at it and say "Cool, lets find out what makes it possible!"
Don't get me wrong. Symbolic language/ thinking always puzzled me because it is the main reason why our conscious experiences feel the way they do(nobody talks about it though), but after studying and learning about the brain mechanisms responsible for it you can see how it emerges and the survival advantage it provides to a species.

I'm not seeing how that follows. I can see how, if a thing were inherently and unassailably private we couldn't publicly discuss what is is, but I don't see how we couldn't publicly discuss how it came about or what purpose it might serve.

If there were some completely secret contents of a black box but if every time I added a coin to that box it spat out a can of beer, I don't need to know what's in the box to have a reasonable scientific theory that the box is designed (evolved, if natural) to vend beer, and that it does so in response to money being placed in it. I could experiment with different coinage, different currencies. See if there's a relationship between coin and beer type... I could develop a dozen perfectly valid, sound theories about this box, how and why it works, all without having a clue what's in it. — Isaac

You asked for evidence, not theories. So assume you have two theories to explain how and why it works. What evidence would prove which one is correct, assuming you can never look inside the box, and that both always correctly predict the box's response?

I don't see how we couldn't publicly discuss how it came about or what purpose it might serve.

We might be able to do that, but I read bert1 as arguing that neuroscience fails in any attempt to show that consciousness just is brain activity.

So it might be that we can explain how consciousness came to be, and the purpose it might serve, but also that consciousness is some non-physical supervenient phenomena which, like the contents of your black box, cannot be directly measured (except by the person whose consciousness it is).

Consciousness is basically a behavior. — T Clark

That's one theory. I wouldn't take it as a given.

We see the results of it in other people all the time, in their public behavior and communication. — T Clark

I can think things and yet not tell you or anyone else what I am thinking. There's more to consciousness than just public behaviour.

That consciousness drives behaviour isn't that consciousness is behaviour.

Then how do you know that the answers given so far are unsatisfactory. If I went into a room searching for something and you asked what it was I was looking for, if I said "I don't know", you might reasonable ask "then how do you know you haven't found it yet? — Isaac

The problem with Bert's and the hard problem approach in general, is that they don't even attempt to enter the room because finding anything appears to be impossible.
Chalmers's hard problem is based on what people find reasonable or possible. T Clark's statement verifies this position , I quote:"It doesn't seem objectively unreasonable to me that physical processing should give rise to a rich inner life.

You asked for evidence, not theories. So assume you have two theories to explain how and why it works. What evidence would prove which one is correct, assuming you can never look inside the box, and that both always correctly predict the box's response? — Michael

- I think that phenomenal consciousness is the last desperate attempt by philosophers to keep consciousness in their curriculum.

if there is such a thing as first person consciousness, and if first person consciousness is essentially private, then by necessity there can’t be any sort of public, scientific evidence of or explanation for it. — Michael

In my opinion this is a failed attempt to hide behind the subjective aspects of the phenomenon.
By first person consciousness you refer to the subjective content of a conscious experience and because we can not share the exact same experience, your claim is that it makes it inaccessible to science.
Well recipes, medicines, brain surgery protocols and marketing exist because we are able to understand people's subjective experiences.We know how specific things feel and we try to make money out of it.
We even have the technology to decode complex conscious content of our thoughts by just reading brain scans with 85% accuracy! (far higher than the ability a married couple has to communicate to each other lol!)
Just because a phenomenon has a subjective aspect that doesn't mean we are unable to objectively study it (fallacy of ambiguity). Thousands of papers are published every year on the subject. New findings allow new techniques and treatments that can improve the quality of our subjective conscious states. We are able to identify pathology, physically alter a brain and satisfy the expectation of our patient by altering his subjective experience.
For me its' dishonest to pretend that we have no clue how subjective conscious states feel like especially when the free market is making big money through this knowledge.

Brain function, previous experiences and our biological setup are Necessary and Sufficient explanations for the subjective nature of our conscious experiences.
i.e. The number of taste buds on human tongue and previous experiences will "decide" whether one will enjoy the experience of a spicy food.
There is no need to imply undetectable dimensions and magical sources. The facts alone explain why experiences are subjective and why we can understand them enough so that we can produce accurate Diagnoses and Technical applications.

By first person consciousness you refer to the subjective content of a conscious experience and because we can not share the exact same experience, your claim is that it makes it inaccessible to science. — Nickolasgaspar

Not exactly. I'm only saying that if it is inaccessible to science then there cannot be any scientific evidence of it.

Scientific evidence for what? that conscious creatures experience things and they experiencing them differently due to their previous experiences and biological setup?

Scientific evidence for what? — Nickolasgaspar

For the inaccessible aspect of consciousness.

Well we might not be able to experience the original "movie" of a conscious state but we can access it by numerous ways and methods. Not only that we can even achieve great things beneficial to our knowledge and the well being of others.
I don't know why you find it so important not to be able to replay from a first person view. Why do you think this is a problem?

'the eye cannot see itself.' — Wayfarer

Except in reflection!

As a scientists we should ignore the "why" questions and try to answer the how and what questions. — Nickolasgaspar

Thankfully, those involved in REAL scientific research, tend to do exactly as you suggest and leave the 'why' aspect of any of the current 'big questions,' as something in the range of personal entertainment to personal psychosis, via their own personal ruminations of such 'why' questions. Be they Philosophers, (who can actually make useful contributions to the ensuing discussions) or theists/theosophists (who offer nothing but woo woo.)

Indeed - but that's pretty well all you do here. You basically barge into every philosophical discussion with Look! Science! Can't you see, fools! That's exactly how you responded to me. — Wayfarer

And what do you think others would say about, 'pretty well all YOU do here?' as you type from your glass house.

Neuroscience is very young indeed! Consider the beginning, as described on Wiki:
"The earliest study of the nervous system dates to ancient Egypt. Trepanation, the surgical practice of either drilling or scraping a hole into the skull for the purpose of curing head injuries or mental disorders, or relieving cranial pressure, was first recorded during the Neolithic period. Manuscripts dating to 1700 BC indicate that the Egyptians had some knowledge about symptoms of brain damage.[10]

Early views on the function of the brain regarded it to be a "cranial stuffing" of sorts. In Egypt, from the late Middle Kingdom onwards, the brain was regularly removed in preparation for mummification. It was believed at the time that the heart was the seat of intelligence."

and also from that same wiki article:
"The first freestanding neuroscience department (then called Psychobiology) was founded in 1964 at the University of California, Irvine by James L. McGaugh. This was followed by the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, which was founded in 1966 by Stephen Kuffler."

Philosophers and theists have had a lot longer at musing on consciousness, than neuroscientists. Perhaps we should give neuroscientists at least another thousand years of rigorous, reliable, scientific investigation, before any 'philosopher,' or 'pseudo-science fan,' even dares to claim that neuroscience and neuroscientists, are not up to the task of understanding the source and workings of human consciousness.

I don't know why you find it so important not to be able to replay from a first person view. Why do you think this is a problem? — Nickolasgaspar

I'm not saying it's important or a problem. I'm just saying that if the subjective aspect of consciousness is inaccessible to science then nothing would count as evidence that the subjective aspect of consciousness is reducible to some physical phenomena like brain activity.

I'm not saying it's important as such. I'm just saying that if the subjective aspect of consciousness is inaccessible to science then nothing would count as evidence that the subjective aspect of consciousness is reducible to some physical phenomena like brain activity. — Michael

-Wow that is a huge leap you made there. First of all you are setting a false relation (absence of direct observation-zero evidence).
"Forensic" methods is how we get to know things of events that we can not detect(directly). Its nothing new in Science. From cosmology, evolution to..... quantum fluctuations , we puzzle facts from different aspects and we construct credible models that are able to produce meaningful Descriptions, Accurate predictions and Technical applications of the phenomenon in question. This is also true with Consciousness.
So we don't really need to be present in a murder in order to identify the murdered.
This is a non sequitur objection.

Now when we verify causal mechanisms , we don't reduce the nature of a phenomenon.We identify the Necessary and Sufficient causes for its emergence. Whether our efforts point to physical mechanisms , that either means the phenomenon IS PHYSICAL or that we don't need to make up additional entities to explain it (parsimony).
After all we have no way to falsify unnecessary and unobservable causes so we will poison our hypotheses without reason.

Describing a phenomenon is not necessary an act of reduction, plus in the case of Conscious States we deal with emergence, which means that Complex Science, not reductionism, is the proper tool for this description. In addition to that we don't know the actual ontology so how one can even accuse as for reducing it??? Explaining things with what are available to us is a Pragmatic Necessity not a biased choice.

Wow that is a huge leap you made there. — Nickolasgaspar

How so? If the subjective aspect of consciousness is inaccessible to science and brain activity is accessible to science then ipso facto the subjective aspect of consciousness isn't brain activity.

Whether our efforts point to physical mechanisms , that either means the phenomenon IS PHYSICAL or that we don't need to make up additional entities to explain it (parsimony).

If it exists but isn't physical then any theory that reduces the mental to the physical is wrong and doesn't explain consciousness at all.

Thankfully, those involved in REAL scientific research tend to do exactly as you suggest and leave the 'why' aspect of any of the current 'big questions,' as something in the range of personal entertainment to personal psychosis via the personal rumination of philosophers, who can actually make useful contributions to the ensuing discussions and theists/theosophists who offer noting but woo woo. — universeness

Correct, why questions are a slippery slope for...getting back in bed with Aristotelian teleology and enabling the pollution of our epistemology.

Forensic" methods is how we get to know things of events that we can not detect(directly). Its nothing new in Science. From cosmology, evolution to..... quantum fluctuations , we puzzle facts from different aspects and we construct credible models that are able to produce meaningful Descriptions, Accurate predictions and Technical applications of the phenomenon in question. This is also true with Consciousness. — Nickolasgaspar

:clap:

How so? If the subjective aspect of consciousness is inaccessible to science and brain activity is accessible to science then ipso facto the subjective aspect of consciousness isn't brain activity. — Michael

First of all ,we have access in the evaluation of the subjective aspect of an experience. We have metrics for profiling blood, brain scans, behavior analysis, interviewing.
We can change the stimuli, or the biological setup and observe changes in behavior, in brain patterns in blood metrics. We can create the experience by stimulating the suspected brain area and observe changes in our blood profile, behavior , brain patterns etc.
We construct Strong Correlations between the phenomenon and the necessary/sufficient mechanism. Warning! Strong Correlations in Science have nothing to do with the correlation-causation heuristics. Its a systematic construction of a case through methodologies on high standards.
Strong Correlations is the threshold used by Science.

We can change the stimuli, or the biological setup and observe changes in behavior, in brain patterns in blood metrics. We can create the experience by stimulating the suspected brain area and observe changes in our blood profile, behavior , brain patterns etc. — Nickolasgaspar

What does that have to do with consciousness? You can have evidence that stimulating certain nerves in certain ways causes the subject to flinch and say "that hurts", but that isn't prima facie evidence of consciousness, and certainly isn't evidence that consciousness just is some physical phenomena like brain activity.

You can have evidence that stimulating certain nerves in certain ways causes the subject to flinch and say "that hurts", but that isn't prima facie evidence of consciousness. — Michael

So, for you, what is your example above, evidence of?

So, for you, what is your example above, evidence of? — universeness

That stimulating certain nerves in certain ways causes the subject to flinch and say "that hurts".