We have a pretty clear physicalist understanding of how, for example, a material object can become hot; by agitation of the molecules. — Janus
Quantum coherence associated with the superpositions of basis vectors in the two representations has been demonstrated to be essential in thermodynamics. The power is completely generated by the coherence work in the spin precession process, while the heat is mainly determined by the coherence heat in the spontaneous emission process.
According to quantum mechanics, all objects can have wave-like properties (see de Broglie waves). For instance, in Young's double-slit experiment electrons can be used in the place of light waves. Each electron's wave-function goes through both slits, and hence has two separate split-beams that contribute to the intensity pattern on a screen. According to standard wave theory[16] these two contributions give rise to an intensity pattern of bright bands due to constructive interference, interlaced with dark bands due to destructive interference, on a downstream screen. This ability to interfere and diffract is related to coherence (classical or quantum) of the waves produced at both slits. The association of an electron with a wave is unique to quantum theory.
When the incident beam is represented by a quantum pure state, the split beams downstream of the two slits are represented as a superposition of the pure states representing each split beam.[17] The quantum description of imperfectly coherent paths is called a mixed state. A perfectly coherent state has a density matrix (also called the "statistical operator") that is a projection onto the pure coherent state and is equivalent to a wave function, while a mixed state is described by a classical probability distribution for the pure states that make up the mixture.
Macroscopic scale quantum coherence leads to novel phenomena, the so-called macroscopic quantum phenomena. For instance, the laser, superconductivity and superfluidity are examples of highly coherent quantum systems whose effects are evident at the macroscopic scale. The macroscopic quantum coherence (off-diagonal long-range order, ODLRO)[18][19] for superfluidity, and laser light, is related to first-order (1-body) coherence/ODLRO, while superconductivity is related to second-order coherence/ODLRO. (For fermions, such as electrons, only even orders of coherence/ODLRO are possible.) For bosons, a Bose–Einstein condensate is an example of a system exhibiting macroscopic quantum coherence through a multiple occupied single-particle state.
The classical electromagnetic field exhibits macroscopic quantum coherence. The most obvious example is the carrier signal for radio and TV. They satisfy Glauber's quantum description of coherence.
Recently M. B. Plenio and co-workers constructed an operational formulation of quantum coherence as a resource theory. They introduced coherence monotones analogous to the entanglement monotones.[20] Quantum coherence has been shown to be equivalent to quantum entanglement[21] in the sense that coherence can be faithfully described as entanglement, and conversely that each entanglement measure corresponds to a coherence measure. — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence_(physics)
— fdrake
What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.
— bert1
I know this wasn't addressed to me. But I can think of two possible requirements you might want from this? The first demands a bare bones functional account, "how does body make consciousness?", which would perhaps make that production conceptually possible by making it empirically possible. — fdrake
The second is a conceptual demand, "can a method of producing consciousness be articulated without internal contradiction?". — fdrake
For the conceptual demand, someone could say "consciousness arises from the eggs the moon lays in human skulls" - which seems to be conceptually possible. — fdrake
But it goes against what we know about eggs, the moon, the body, and human skulls. Regardless of that, those contradictions seem only to come from the inconsistency of that concept of consciousness with an aggregate of empirical data. So something can be conceptually possible even if we know it is empirically false. — fdrake
Like Lord of the Rings. Does conceptually possible mean something more than "can be imagined"? — fdrake
Edit: something I assumed was that empirically possible implies conceptually possible. Another alternative is that something can in fact be true, but nevertheless cannot be conceptually possible. Reality as Lovecraftian abomination.
Promissory notes or wrigglin' and squirmin' won't cut it. Present an account or admit you cannot. — Janus
I haven't been following this thread, although I probably should be. It's a good OP. I think I agree with your title, but probably for reasons you might not like: I don't think "phenomenal consciousness" makes a lot of sense. It has the smell of ineffable qualia and such other nasties. — Banno
The producer is so different from the product it seems impossible that they are the same kind of thing. But maybe that's my failing.
— bert1
An orchestra produces a Beethoven symphony. Do you find that equally impossible? Is an orchestra the same kind of thing as a symphony? — Isaac
What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.
— bert1
OK...
Consciousness is the label we give to the re-telling of recent mental events with a first-person protagonist. — Isaac
It evolved to give a coherent meta-model to various predictive processing streams so that responses could be coordinated better in the longer term which provides a competitive advantage worth the calorie cost of doing to in large bodies living in complex environments (usually social ones). It doesn't 'feel like' anything, we use the term 'feels like' in conversations such as these as it's something we've learned to say in these circumstances from a particular position (those taking that position use the term, it's like a badge or token of membership of that group). Our linguistic response to consciousness within social hierarchies is not the same as actual consciousness.
How was that? Not "do you agree with that?", I mean in what way do you find that not even conceptually possible?
Beethoven symphony, however conceived (Is it the score? Or the playing? Or the sound waves?) are structure and function. — bert1
If you're happy with your definition and explanation, good for you. — bert1
Are you seriously saying that a reasonable burden of proof is that unless I summarise the entire field of neuroscience of consciousness you can justifiably suggest it doesn't exist. — Isaac
If you want to claim there's no neuroscientific theories of consciousness unless I reveal them to you, then we might as well leave it there. I'm not interested in that game. — Isaac
OK, science geeks, how do we determine whether an AI is conscious? What do we do? What tests do we give it? — bert1
How do we know other people are conscious? What standards do we use? — T Clark
1- how are qualities like the color red created, 2 - how are qualities from different modalities like a visual field and feelings and sounds bound together to be experienced simultaneously, 3 - assuming such consciousness is created how is it causally efficacious so that it adds something beyond mere automation. — lorenzo sleakes
I'm saying I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how matter can give rise to consciousness. — Janus
What's of philosophical interest (I think) is that you (in common with bert1 and Chalmers it seems) want to say that your ability to comprehend any given theory's model, to conceive of things the way it does, has some bearing on its veracity. It's that oddity I'm interested in. — Isaac
Really? Do you not find the argument from analogy completely compelling? I know some don't, but I struggle to understand why not. — bert1
Conceivablility isn't a subjective feat, it's a reasonably public property of propositions. — bert1
Chalmers (if fdrake's interpretation is correct) wants his inability to 'conceive' a bridge to have metaphysical implications. — Isaac
Do you have some argument in favour of that conclusion, or is it just a foundational principle for you? — Isaac
The conceivability of the p-zombie just shifts the burden to functionalists to explain why we talk about having experiences when we don't actually have them. — frank
Something might be conceivable even without anyone to conceive it. It's about possibility. It's more obvious to think of in terms of logical possibility. - (a & -a) was as true 13bn years ago as it is now, no? Same with conceivability. — bert1
Yes, but we're not talking here about the possibility, we're talking about the actuality. Chalmers' actual failure to conceive it. Not its impossibility of being conceived. Why does the one indicate the other? Is Chalmers the pinnacle of human mental ability such that if he can't conceive it, no one can? — Isaac
I'm saying it's about conceptual possibility, not someone's actual ability to conceive it. — bert1
I haven't seen any evidence of people conceiving it anyway. — bert1
Who says we don't have them. The argument is about the kind of thing they are, not whether they are. It's about whether 'experience' describes a set of mental events, an epiphenomena of human fancy, or a type of thing the relationship to which neurons have needs explaining. — Isaac
No one is saying there's no subject matter there at all.
We 'talk about' life-force, luck, auras, God, unicorns, gut instinct, premonition... Doesn't mean they all default exist in any particular form. — Isaac
Like you, I have always though that empirical possibility entails conceptual possibility. But maybe that's not right. Maybe some would say there might be a whole load of things that are empirically possible that, even if we knew what they were, wouldn't make sense conceptually. That's a weird position. That should be distinguished from mysterianism, which (I guess) is the position that we may never know how consciousness arises from the physical (because of our own limitations), nevertheless it would make conceptual sense if we could grasp it. — bert1
Oh, OK. I would say this was definitely logically possible. But not conceptually possible. (Maybe our concepts of possibility are different, not sure) — bert1
That is a worrying thought. — bert1
Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. — H P Lovecraft, Nyaralathotep
I fully agree. In fact, I will make this statement a little stronger: Neuroscience has nothing to do with human consciousness. (At the level of the mind, of course.)Neuroscience has nothing to say about phenomenal consciousness. — bert1
Exactly. One cannot stress that enough. This kind of consciousness is what I call "bodily consciousness", i.e. consciousness at a body level.Neuroscience has plenty to say about other concepts of consciousness, the difference between being awake and asleep, various arousal levels, identifying neural correlates of particular experiences — bert1
I suppose it's possible to walk the path; there are some physical observables (behaviour etc) which provide sufficient justification for claiming that a test subject has narrow content - the thing is it would always be return that the subject would have narrow content as a p-zombie is stipulated to be able to emulate any physical aspect of a human. The fork in the road is that there are non-physical observables which suffice for that justification - but I've no idea what they could be. — fdrake
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.