Heh. Yes. Causal. Knowing the speech to text and swiping make a lot of errors, I try to proofread. I obviously do not always succeed.I think consciousness is casual.
— Patterner
I’m puzzled. I think “casual” here may be a typo. Is that right? — Ludwig V
I do. We do more than notice.Our consciousness, our awareness, is nothing more than lumps of matter noticing what’s going on.
— Patterner
I don't disagree. — Ludwig V
There's a lot of territory to cover here.But there are different kinds of lumps of matter. Some of them are conscious. Others are money. Others are people we love.
I’m still puzzled.
Are numbers, words, logical variables, musical notes, lumps of matter? What about shadows, rainbows, surfaces, colours, boundaries, sub-atomic particles?
Votes, contracts, insults, punches, all involve lumps of matter, but are they lumps of matter?
Pictures are lumps of matter, but are they just lumps of matter like any other?
Card games all involve lumps of matter, but does that mean there is no important difference between them? Banknotes are all lumps of matter, but it doesn't follow they all have the same value. — Ludwig V
I would tell them I disagree. I do not think our thoughts are the result of nothing but the arrangements of the constituent parts of our brains that come about due to the laws of physics. We certainly need sense-data for our brains to form connections and pathways, and for consciousness to form. (Anybody think an infant born with no ability to sense anything will become a thinking person?)Let me try an analogy. There used to be a popular philosophical theory – sense-datum theory. This argued that everything that we know, including our concepts, comes from the senses. Many people took this to mean that everything can be reduced to sense-data. Hence, physics can be reduced to sense-data. So what would you say to them? — Ludwig V
I've had Op 127 in my head since your first response to me. Finally listening to it right now.Love your quartets, btw.
— Patterner
I'm glad to hear it. I love them too. I wish I had written them, but glad I don't have to live that tortured life. — Ludwig V
Fortunately, also, the argument relies on the fact that we can tell wrong from right. — Ludwig V
Knowing the speech to text and swiping make a lot of errors, I try to proofread. I obviously do not always succeed. — Patterner
Can we program consciousness into them, because consciousness is nothing but particles following rules? Why are we not as they are, collections of particles following rules, not noticing, and thinking about, what we're doing? — Patterner
But it's not only the sense-data and physics. — Patterner
I've had Op 127 in my head since your first response to me. Finally listening to it right now. — Patterner
I don't see this. Right from wrong is a judgement made by reason. If reason is fallible so is that judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover
Hume's method is to portray reason as infallible — Metaphysician Undercover
Heh. I suspect not.In the mean time we are making a philosophical mistake that was first made by Plato - thinking that the latest scientific development is the answer to everything. — Ludwig V
Can't imagine the mind exists independent of the brain. Seems to me the mind is the brain, doing... mind things.I don't think a disembodied mind can exist, although it seems that people can not only imagine such a thing, but believe in it. — Ludwig V
Never stopped me. If I haven't already demonstrated that, it won't be long.Now I'm rambling because I don't have anything coherent to say. — Ludwig V
Where does he portray reason as infallible? — Fooloso4
Can't imagine the mind exists independent of the brain. Seems to me the mind is the brain, doing... mind things. — Patterner
We can only say that, as far as we know, they have held true without exception up to now, and that we hope they will hold true tomorrow. — Jacques
The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.)Can't imagine the mind exists independent of the brain. Seems to me the mind is the brain, doing... mind things.
— Patterner
It's complicated. My heart pumps blood; I don't. My kidneys filter my blood; I don't. My muscles move my arm, fingers, legs; but I (and not my brain) walk and type and wave. My brain is clearly a key part of seeing and thinking, but I do those things, not my brain. — Ludwig V
I don't think that it's really accurate to say that Newton showed that Aristotle was wrong or that Einstein showed that Newton was wrong — Ludwig V
The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.) — Patterner
We certainly need sense-data for our brains to form connections and pathways, and for consciousness to form. (Anybody think an infant born with no ability to sense anything will become a thinking person?) — Patterner
And I don't think it's accurate to say that Hume intended to show that Newton was wrong. I think that his intention was completely different. — Jacques
The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.) — Patterner
I’ve never been in a sensory-deprivation tank. I suppose an extended stay in one might give hints on how much of our self would remain if our brain was removed and put in a life-support mechanism that gave no sensory input. Certainly, we need sensory input to develop a self. I wonder how much we need it to remain a self.The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.)
— Patterner
I agree, of course, that If I lose my brain, I cannot think of myself as me. But it would be a very delicate balance to produce exactly the right brain damage to achieve loss of self without immense collateral damage up to and including death.
However, I do think that more than just a brain is needed to maintain a sense of self. It's not quite the same issue, but you did say earlier:-
We certainly need sense-data for our brains to form connections and pathways, and for consciousness to form. (Anybody think an infant born with no ability to sense anything will become a thinking person?)
— Patterner
There's a constant temptation to identify this or that feature of human beings to this or that physiological component. Often, that's possible. But not always, and being a person is a case in point - or so it seems to me. — Ludwig V
That is incredible! Thanks.The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain.
— Patterner
Man with Tiny Brain Shocks Doctors — Wayfarer
Yes, it seems awkward to say the self is consciousness, even if there is no self without it.The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.)
— Patterner
I agree. I think the brain, neuroscience, and structure and function generally, is totally relevant to the issue of what constitutes the self. But the self isn't consciousness. All reductionist theories of consciousness would be better reframed as theories of the self. — bert1
Man with Tiny Brain Shocks Doctors — Wayfarer
the issue of what constitutes the self. — bert1
Certainly, we need sensory input to develop a self. I wonder how much we need it to remain a self. — Patterner
Would seem rather an awkward case for neural reductionism. — Wayfarer
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