Because the purpose of this discussion is to assess the evidence either for or against the neuroscientist's claim that consciousness can be exhaustively explained by brain activity, — Michael

First of all this is not the claim made by neuroscientist's. This is the goal of Neuroscience based on the the limits and nature of our methodologies . Its a Pragmatic Necessity , not a personal preference.
Secondly nothing in your "if" statement takes our current scientific evidence in to consideration!
It introduces unfalsifiable realms as options in our syllogisms.

It is perfectly correct not to beg the question and assume either materialism or dualism from the start. — Michael

ITs more reasonable to reject all metaphysical worldviews and proceed with what we can actually investigate and verify.
In science and in Natural Philosophy, supernatural realms are not used as excuses for our failures to figure things out.

Secondly nothing in your "if" statement takes our current scientific evidence in to consideration! — Nickolasgaspar

Obviously, that's the point. If some aspect of consciousness is non-physical then there can be no scientific (physical) evidence of it.

Arguing that because there is no scientific evidence for it then it doesn't exist is to beg the question and assume that if something exists then there is scientific evidence for it.

In science and in Natural Philosophy, supernatural realms are not used as excuses for our failures to figure things out. — Nickolasgaspar

:100: :clap:

That is not the point, you are avoiding to consider the evidence in favor of its physical nature by using a bad excuse (science can not experience our personal experience) and a red herring (if statement).
In essence you skip the hard part of philosophy (evaluation of available epistemology) and you diplomatically introduce your worldview while trying to avoid the burden of your claim.

That is not the point, you are avoiding to consider the evidence in favor of its physical nature by using a bad excuse (science can not experience our personal experience) — Nickolasgaspar

It's not a bad excuse.

The argument is:

1) all physical phenomena is susceptible to scientific analysis
2) we have first-person experience
3) some aspect of first-person experience is not susceptible to scientific analysis
4) therefore, some aspect of first-person experience is not a physical phenomenon

The argument is valid, and so to reject the conclusion you must reject one of the premises. But you've previously accepted premises 2) and 3), and I assume you also accept 1), so it's irrational to then reject 4).

1) all physical phenomena is susceptible to scientific analysis
2) we have first-person experience
3) some aspect of first-person experience is not susceptible to scientific analysis
4) therefore, some aspect of first-person experience is not a physical phenomenon — Michael

Well the argument is unsound. You have a huge error in your third premise.
First of all we not only analyze first person experience, we are also affecting it with technical applications.
The other problem with your claim is that a personal experience....is a personal experience! So accusing science for not being able to experience "your experience" is like accusing a tuna sandwich for being slow in a 100m race.
Our analysis verifies the physical nature of the phenomenon independent of its subjective quality.
No 4 is also false. The phenomenon is mental but it is physically induced. So its natural and can be investigated by the methods of science.

The phenomenon is mental but it is physically induced. — Nickolasgaspar

If the phenomenon is mental, and if the mental is non-physical, then the phenomenon is non-physical.

That it has a physical cause isn't that it, itself, is physical.

The other problem with your claim is that a personal experience....is a personal experience! So accusing science for not being able to experience "your experience" is like accusing a tuna sandwich for being slow in a 100m race. — Nickolasgaspar

I don't know what you mean by science experiencing something.

Either my first-person experience is susceptible to scientific analysis or it isn't. So which is it?

If it isn't then either a) my first-person experience isn't a physical phenomenon or b) some physical phenomena are not susceptible to scientific analysis. So which is it?

In science and in Natural Philosophy, supernatural realms are not used as excuses for our failures to figure things out. — Nickolasgaspar

Historically speaking there is a pattern with philosophers and early scientists where when they reached the limits of their contemporary knowledge, they "blamed" the supernatural for keeping secrets from them. (Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, the early fathers of QM.etc).

If the phenomenon is mental, and if the mental is non-physical, then the phenomenon is non-physical. — Michael

Well it depends form the meaning of the word. This is why I always use the term "natural".

That it has a physical cause isn't that it, itself, is physical. — Michael

IT is physical since the mechanisms are physical, the emergent property is Natural (mental property).

I don't know what you mean by science experiencing something. — Michael

This is what you demand from scientists and any third person to do....to experience your experience.

Either my first-person experience is susceptible to scientific analysis or it isn't. So which is it? — Michael

Of course it is, just look at the huge bibliography on the phenomenon...Scientific books and papers can not be written without analyzing the actual phenomenon.

Well it depends form the meaning of the word. This is why I always use the term "natural". — Nickolasgaspar

What's the difference between "natural" and "physical"?

IT is physical since the mechanisms are physical, the emergent property is Natural (mental property). — Nickolasgaspar

So are you arguing for property dualism?

Of course it is, just look at the huge bibliography on the phenomenon...Scientific books and papers can not be written without analyzing the actual phenomenon. — Nickolasgaspar

There are lots of scientific papers on brain activity and behavioural responses. This does not prima facie say anything about first-person experience.

Much of the science on first-person experience depends on taking for granted what people self-report, which is why the issue of animal consciousness is problematic (they can't tell us anything). But someone saying "I am in pain" is not the same thing as that person's first-person experience of pain, and so that there is scientific evidence of the former isn't that there is scientific evidence of the latter.

What's the difference between "natural" and "physical"? — Michael

They are the same. The word "Natural" can be used as an umbrella term when we want to make a distinction between mental and physical properties of matter.
But again they are the same. i.e. a physical injury (or pathology) in a specific physical area of the brain affects the mental property of memory.

So are you arguing for property dualism? — Michael

No,its an observer relative term. We classify them base on their differences. Its not an ontological questions. Both emerge from physical structures.

There are lots of scientific papers on brain activity and behavioural responses. These are not prima facie evidence that they address first-person experience. — Michael

There are many papers that explains how personal experiences arise from brain function, how pathology, physical injury and intoxication/physical condition can affect their quality and how we are able to diagnose and repair problematic states of consciousness.

Much of the science on first-person experience depends on taking for granted what people self-report, — Michael

That's one out of many tools available to us.

But, of course, someone saying "I am in pain" is not the same thing as the first-person experience of pain, and so that there is scientific evidence of the former isn't that there is scientific evidence of the latter. — Michael

Of course there is evidence, through establishing strong correlations between the claim and the phenomenon in question, by analyzing brain scans, blood profile (elevated hormones), behavior and interview. Sure we can not experience their experience of pain in real time but this is not an issue. Forensic methods are present in all disciplines of science.
Its like saying there aren't any evidence for cosmology, evolution because we don't observe a phenomenon in real time. Lets be serious.

The word "Natural" can be used as an umbrella term when we want to make a distinction between mental and physical properties of matter. — Nickolasgaspar

If there's a distinction between mental and physical properties then you accept that a) the mental is non-physical, that b) mental things exist, and so that c) non-physical things exist.

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

This goes back to @Isaac's previous question:

... What would an answer look like? Give me an example answer. It's doesn't have to be the right answer, just an example of what sort of thing would satisfy you. — Isaac

I classify phenomenal consciousness as a mental process. That's the kind of a thing I say it is. The category I say it belongs in. One of the characteristics of a mental processes is that they are behaviors or at least that they manifest themselves to us as behaviors.

If it's not a mental process, what kind of a thing is it? What category does it fit in?

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. — Michael

Consciousness doesn't just manifest itself as language, it also shows itself in our other behavior. We know by analogy. We know what our experience feels like, how it makes us act. It would be silly for us not to interpret other people's similar behavior as something other than the same type of experience we have.

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

Much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness.

First, you will need to make some acknowledgements to the points made before answering your question. I don't want to address the same claims again and again.

2) we have first-person experience — Michael

I think the problem is here. It's not clear what is meant.

You say we have first person experience, but (private) first person experience cannot be used to give 'first person experience' a definite content.

Imagine replacing this premise with 'we all have a metaphysical lockbox that only we can see and look into.' How can that be a public (rational) premise ? How could one be sure of what was referenced ? Without merely assuming some strange and elusive entity that is essentially the same in all of us ?

First, you will need to make some acknowledgements to the points made before answering your question. I don't want to address the same claims again and again. — Nickolasgaspar

Depending on your answer to my question, the other points are irrelevant. Almost nobody denies the causal relationship between brain activity and mental phenomena. It's accepted that we feel pain because of such-and-such brain activity, and so can infer how someone feels by examining their brain and other bodily functions.

That the neuroscientist can explain that such-and-such brain activity causes the first-person experience of pain isn't that he can explain how or why it does so, or the nature of first-person experience itself.

I don't really understand your comments. I accept that consciousness often determines behaviour, and so that behaviour can indicate consciousness. But it doesn't follow from that that consciousness is behaviour. As you even say yourself "much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness" and so clearly they are two different things.

Without merely assuming some strange and elusive entity that is essentially the same in all of us ? — green flag

That is indeed what we assume. Whether or not it's reasonable is a separate issue. The skeptic who questions the existence of other minds might argue that such an assumption is unreasonable.

I’ve never seen a conscious brain and nervous system. And if I ever saw a brain and nervous system, perhaps in a jar or something, I’d be hard-pressed to describe it as conscious.

That’s because consciousness is a property of organisms, which are a great deal more than brains and nervous systems. Sapiens, for example, have digestive, endocrine, skeletal, respiratory and other systems. Each of these are required for human consciousness.

Neuroscience has a great deal to say about consciousness, but it is not the full story.

But it doesn't follow from that that consciousness is behaviour. — Michael

As I noted:

One of the characteristics of a mental processes is that they are behaviors or at least that they manifest themselves to us as behaviors. — T Clark

As you even say yourself "much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness" and so clearly they are two different things. — Michael

If I say that all apples are fruits, the fact that all fruits are not apples does not prove I'm wrong.

I would say that consciousness causes (some) behaviour, not that (some) behaviour is consciousness. As I mentioned before, I can think many things that I never "manifest" in behaviour.

I'd say that your interior monologue is still bodily. Technology is being developed that can read your thoughts by little motions in the throat, etc.

The skeptic who questions the existence of other minds might argue that such an assumption is unreasonable. — Michael

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about this kind of skepticism. Instead I'd carefully distinguish between ordinary language that involves consciousness and philosophers' less sensible dualism.

I'd say that your interior monologue is still bodily. Technology is being developed that can read your thoughts by little motions in the throat, etc. — green flag

There are studies that show that decision-making is unconscious, and that conscious decision-making is post hoc. So it could be that the technology you reference is reading that pre-conscious decision-making, not consciousness itself.

So it could be that the technology you reference is reading that pre-conscious decision-making, not consciousness itself. — Michael

My central point is that 'metaphysical' consciousness is semantically indeterminate and even paradoxical. The famous beetles and boxes passage suggests why. 'Consciousness' refers to a box that could contain anything or nothing. Or it says what it should not be able to say.

My central point is that 'metaphysical' consciousness is semantically indeterminate and even paradoxical. — green flag

Something like Wittgenstein's argument against a private language? I'm not convinced by it. I made a passing comment about it here.

If there's a distinction between mental and physical properties then you accept that a) the mental is non-physical and that b) mental things exist. — Michael

No and no. There isn't any ontological distinction. Its like attributing a different ontology for the property of color and the property of hardness displayed by a rock.
Mental is just a label we place on properties produced by specific physical processes in the brain.

Mental is just a label we place on properties produced by specific physical processes in the brain. — Nickolasgaspar

I think we are largely on the same side on this issue, but I'd say let's not forget that 'mental' is a great word in ordinary talk, same with 'physical.' As I see it, the problem is assuming some kind of a dualism and then 'deriving' some limitation of science. Dualistic assumptions lead trivially to the socalled limits of science. But such assumptions are never justified or even clarified.

I can not agree more. This is why I provide definitions with my terms. Micheal is struggling to push a false dichotomy (physical non physical) as if all properties of matter are the same and those who differ have a special ontology. This is why I used Natural as the umbrella term and "physical'/ "mental" properties with a shared ontology but with different qualities.(nothing special or new)

I imagine much of the dispute regarding whether neuroscience and its philosophical analysis suffices for an explanation concerns whether ( 6 ) should be included in the list. — fdrake

Yes, I think you are probably right about that. From what I recall, Dennett and a few others (forget their names) give accounts of 1-5 and then say "That's it, we're done, there's no extra bits left." And woo-mongers (like me) say "Actually I'm not really talking about 1-5, I'm only really interested in 6, the subjectivity, the first person perspective, the experience, the what it's like to be me, etc."

From my perspective, I'm actually quite happy with a functionalist account of self, your 1-5. For a while now I've made a distinction between self and consciousness:

Self is sufficiently complex to be vague, and have permeable borders. Memories come and go, atoms in our bodies get replaced, values and beliefs change over time, when I stop and the rest of the world starts is a vague matter. Consciousness does not seem to be a vague matter.

In ordinary talk we speak of 'losing consciousness' during sleep or anaesthesia. I think that is strictly inaccurate; what changes is the boundaries of self. When I 'lose consciousness' bert1 ceases to exist for a while as a functional unity in terms of your 1-5. The total consciousness, I suggest, remains. Just as the total mass an energy remains.