All that would have to be true is that somehow information is affecting reality (which it clearly does) and is capable of being stored in such a way that it is not trivially evident, but is accessible and amenable to neural processing. — Pantagruel
Other people and other measuring devices can then confirm or conflict with MY interpretation of the event. — universeness
I am not suggesting that any level of 'telepathy' between humans is impossible, but it is true, that from a 'naturalist' position, and from a quantum physics position, science would be tasked to find the 'carrier particle' that causes telepathy and consciousness. Just like the search for the graviton, currently continues.
This is probably why I still love string theory.
Consciousness could then be just another vibrating string state! Easy peasy! :halo:
String theory at is base is a great KISS theory. Keep It Simple Stupid :grin: — universeness
So I suppose the extent to which one is content with an evolutionary frame is the extent to which one is willing to allow for other influence. With behaviour that might be culture. With anything we might have randomness, or God, or our alien simulation managers... — Isaac
For me, I think evolutionary psychology is almost all bollocks. I think that because cultural influences are just too obviously at least a possible factor. — Isaac
With consciousness, however, I can't really think of that conflicting influence. We could invoke randomness (it just turned up), but then we'd also have to explain why humans who didn't have it weren't easily able to outbreed those that did.
We could argue, as Dennet does, that it's an illusion, there's nothing to find a purpose to. But I dislike defining things away.
I don't dispute the plausibility of non-evolutionary accounts, they just seem far more complicated, have more loose ends, and don't seem to explain anything that isn't covered in a functional account. — Isaac
Then how can there be any consciousness in the body, if we can remove so much of it, without becoming a less conscious creature? — universeness
I mean, do you think their cortex would have a reduced ability, to play it's role in perception, awareness, thought, memory, cognition, etc due to having an artificial blood pump, instead of a natural one (such as a heart transplant)? — universeness
BUT do you therefore think that if before you die, we could take out your brain and connect it to a fully cybernetic body. That there is no way and no sense that the creature produced would still be you?
Still be your 'conscience?' — universeness
It's a very hard to grasp concept — Dawnstorm
A p-zombie and a person with first-person experience would both behave the same, and thus share the same evolution. What sort of test could we devise to tell if one is a p-zombie or not? If p-zombies are impossible, how can we conceptualise evidence for this? — Dawnstorm
When I say that my keyboard is made up of atoms, I can conceptualise this a matter of scale. It's easy. When I say, consciousness is made up of neural activity (which is my default working assumption), all I have is a correlation; the nature of the connection eludes me. — Dawnstorm
I remember an essay by Stephen Jay Gould. In it he described what happens when animals get larger. Their brains tend to get larger at a faster rate than their bodies in general. Conclusion - selection for a larger body might coincidently select for a even larger brain. Not really random, but not selected either. — T Clark
What Stephen Pinker says about language makes sense to me - humans have an instinct to learn language. The structures of our nervous systems and minds are built that way. Obviously, social factors also are involved. Pinker's views are not accepted by everyone. apokrisis in particular believes language behavior can be explained by a generalized cognitive function. As always, apokrisis, forgive me if I misrepresented your views. — T Clark
consciousness could arise out of interactions between abilities for abstract thinking, language, and other higher level neurological function. Again - that's speculation. Which isn't to say that consciousness doesn't provide an evolutionary advantage. — T Clark
A cybernetic body would mean a total different experience.Maybe due to the same brain we might have some things in common.But i wouldn't consider myself same as my new "cybernetic self". — dimosthenis9
How for example the senses that my body has now and give data to my brain and form my consciousness be the same with the cybernetic senses that I would have?The data from them would be totally different. — dimosthenis9
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. — NOS4A2
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? — T Clark
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.
Much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness.
Most neuroscientists chasing the neural mechanisms of consciousness focus on its contents, measuring changes in the brain when it thinks about a particular thing – a smell, a memory, an emotion. Quite separately, others study how the brain behaves during different conscious states, like alert wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep or anesthesia.
"the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc."
"the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people"
Our conscious state is thought to depend on the activity of so-called ‘thalamo-cortical’ circuits..... Thalamocortical circuits are thought to be the target of general anesthesia, and damage to these neurons due to tumors or stroke often results in coma.
...functional brain imaging studies locate the contents of consciousness mostly within the cortex, in ‘cortico-cortical’ circuits.
Aru and colleagues believe that L5p neurons are uniquely placed to bridge the divide.
The relationship between legs and walking is clear, the latter is what the former does. — bert1
Yes, I like that idea. It's what would go into my category of 'random' still though. Random, as in coincidence, no reason. — Isaac
It may be before you came into this conversation, but I started out down this evolutionary route as an attempt to firm up bert1's original dissatisfaction with the explanations given, his sense that there was a 'why?' still unanswered. — Isaac
that's a topic for another conversation. — Isaac
I agree, I think that's perfectly likely, but as I said above, in the context of this question in the OP, it wouldn't even arise if randomness (or lack of reason) were one of the options. — Isaac
1) 'there are no reasons (it just happened)' - the sort of option you're suggesting
2) 'because it confers some evolutionary advantage' - the kind of functionalist account — Isaac
It means that people with existential anxieties will always find excuses to embrace a comforting idea able to separate their existence from their a biological body with an expiration date.Great! It goes on to say that most neuroscientists think the two are indivisible, but I'm not sure if they mean conceptually indivisible or physically indivisible. — bert1
It means that people with existential anxieties will always find excuses to embrace a comforting idea able to separate their existence from their a biological body with an expiration date. — Nickolasgaspar
Yet if one asks "why do we have consciousness?" I think the answer needs to consist of a set of satisfactory reasons, simply by the structure of the question, no?
And so if a set of reasons are given, they can only be rejected on two grounds; they're not reasons, or they're not satisfactory. — Isaac
If I could at least get as far as understanding the type of measure of satisfaction missing, that would be progress. The kind of reason that would suffice. But I'm so far missing even that. — Isaac
I don't know what that means. Our consciousness is the author of our self.I do explicitly say in my post the self can be distinguished from consciousness. — bert1
Our consciousness is the author of our self. — Nickolasgaspar
I vote 'property'. — bert1
That may well be true of us-as-human. But the behaviour we don't drive might be driven by the consciousness of other entities. — bert1
I have posted many times a specific scientific definition of the term. Try to keep up or don't waste my time.Claiming the one conceptually ambiguous concept is the author of another conceptually ambiguous concept gets us nowhere, and fast. — Fooloso4
I have posted many times a specific scientific definition of the term. Try to keep up or don't waste my time. — Nickolasgaspar
I have posted many times a specific scientific definition of the term. — Nickolasgaspar
I constantly post the link of the definition I use so you have no excuse — Nickolasgaspar
trying to hide behind vague and undefined terms — Nickolasgaspar
Despite a revival in the scientific study of consciousness over recent decades, the only real consensus so far is that there is still no consensus.
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