The circularity begins when you promise that “ when we describe ourselves as being conscious we're describing that non-physiological aspect of ourselves”, and when asked which non-physical aspect of ourselves we’re describing, you answer “consciousness”. — NOS4A2
I’m only arguing that if consciousness does not apply to the physiology, there is no other object to which it can apply. — NOS4A2
The reason I would say no such aspects exist is because there is no indication such aspects exist. — NOS4A2
Incidentally, what would constitute evidence of this claim? What would you be looking for?
— Wayfarer
Outstanding question. I did a summary of three points for someone else who asked the same question earlier in this thread. Of course, its not limited to that. Let me find and repaste them here.
1. Consciousness is able to exist despite a lack of physical capability to do so.
For example, move your consciousness apart from your head where it sits into the next room that you cannot currently see.
2. Demonstrate a conscious entity that has no physical or energetic correlation.
For example, prove that a completely brain dead body is conscious. Or Inebriate someone to a high blood alcohol level and demonstrate that their consciousness is completely unaffected.
3. If consciousness is not matter and/or energy, please demonstrate evidence of its existence without using a God of the Gaps approach. — Philosophim
It (the act of typing) is physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.
What is the non-physical part? A sub-space where my consciousness resides?
— Philosophim
The interpretation of meaning. The constant, underlying, subliminal processes of 'this means that', 'this is that', 'this word has that meaning' - otherwise known as judgement. That is not a physical process. — Wayfarer
That is the Hard Problem. "Through our physical brain" is a where, not a how. "In the sky" does not tell us how flight is accomplished. "In our legs" does not tell us how walking is accomplished. "In our brain" does not tell us how consciousness is accomplished. The details are not insignificant. They are remarkably important. And they are unknown.All we're worried about is the details in how the brain generates it. — Philosophim
I don't think it's circular. If you asked me what "physiology" describes, the answer is physiology.
What does physiology apply to? The question doesn't make sense. Physiology is just its own thing. Similarly, if dualism is correct then consciousness is just its own thing.
There's certainly something peculiar about consciousness given that a "hard" problem of consciousness is even considered. We don't consider a "hard" problem of electricity or water after all. Of course, that might just be because consciousness is significantly more complicated than every other natural phenomenon in the universe. Or it might be because consciousness really is non-natural and that there really is a "hard" problem.
Physiology applies to an organism and the way it functions. Consciousness applies to what? — NOS4A2
There is no hard problem if the term "conscious" describes the concrete. — NOS4A2
I agree.I don't consider consciousness to be a thing but rather a process. — wonderer1
The burden of proof is on anyone who claims to have the answer. Nobody has the answer at the moment. It’s all guesswork on everybody’s part. Somebody thinks it’s physical? Prove it. Somebody thinks it’s proto-consciousness? Prove it. Someone thinks it’s fields? Prove it.Still, in light of the scientific evidence on the side of physicalists it seemed worth bringing up the question of why it is physicalists that are supposed to have the burden of proof. — wonderer1
I have no idea what you're asking here.
Dualists claim that humans are a collection of physical and non-physical (mental) stuff. The term "biology" is used to refer to the physical stuff and the term "consciousness" is used to refer to the non-physical (mental) stuff. To say that a human is conscious is to say that it has this non-physical (mental) stuff.
Whereas materialists claim that humans are a collection of physical stuff alone and that the term "consciousness" refers to some subsection of that physical stuff. To say that a human is conscious is to say that it has this subsection of that physical stuff.
Yes, if. But either way, there undoubtedly seems to me a hard problem, hence the existence of substantial contemporary philosophical literature on the nature of consciousness and of substance and property dualism. So either it is the case that consciousness is a physical thing, but significantly more complex than every other physical thing in the universe, or it isn't a physical thing.
The burden of proof is on anyone who claims to have the answer. Nobody has the answer at the moment. It’s all guesswork on everybody’s part. Somebody thinks it’s physical? Prove it. Somebody thinks it’s proto-consciousness? Prove it. Someone thinks it’s fields? Prove it. — Patterner
Would not "Englishness", if it exists, be some manifest quality or qualities? — Janus
No, that's right, it would be observed in behavior, also a physical phenomenon. — Janus
I’m just asking what the word “consciousness” refers to. I have to Imagine a string going from the word to what it is in the world the word refers to. The dualist would have nowhere to put it because it would either attach to some biology, or nothing. Non-physical stuff is just a roundabout way of saying “nothing”, in my view, because nothing indicates such stuff exists. — NOS4A2
Maybe it’s an abstract term denoting abstract qualities of physical things, particularity conscious organisms. — NOS4A2
I did say "if Englishness exists". — Janus
We know humans are biological organisms; do we have any evidence that they are more than that? — Janus
As Patterner pointed out, consciousness is not empirically observable. — NotAristotle
Or perhaps to put the question more precisely: How is the brain different from non-conscious physical stuff? My answer is that it's not different and that's the mystery. — NotAristotle
Obviously you are correct.I think [Gnomon's] fundamentally wrong because he has m = matter instead of m = mass, the correct equivalence. — ucarr
You're being generous, ucarr. @Gnomon spouts his own warlock's brew of woo-woo nonsense which he rationalizes with pseudo-scientific sophistry. Have you read any of his personal blog on "EnFormationism"? A good laugh that quickly becomes a tedious slog ... yet insightful as to what he's really up to: substituting a deistic prime mover (i.e. universal programmer aka "The EnFormer") for "the creator god of Abraham". If you search my posts using "Gnomon" as a keyword you'll find that since 2020 I've challenged him hundreds of times to be more rigorously clear and accurate with the science and the philosophy he espouses, but to no avail. Maybe you will have better luck than I've had, ucarr ...I've been criticizing him from the standpoint of execution of his argumentation. I've characterized it as being slapdash and error-laden.
If I understand you correctly, "memory" in the brain is physical but without corroborating evidence its content is not public.If firstly we picture Einstein sitting at his desk writing out the equations for special relativity, and then secondly we read his paper published in 1905, can we next conjoin these two events via memory to the effect that we can claim them public and therefore physical?
No. I'm saying that, IMO, physicalism excludes non-physical concepts (e.g. X-of-the-gaps supernaturalia) from explanations of aspects of (i.e. transformations in) the physical world ... such that, reversing your terms, "the scientific method is rooted in" (a) physicalist paradigm.You're saying physicalism is rooted in the scientific method's demand that scientifically measurable things be public?
More or less. Read the article I linked in the post you're referring to for an elaboration on the context within which I use the adjective "metacognitive".Is metacognitive, within your context, higher-order cognition, i.e., cognition of cognition?
Well, there is such a thing as being English, but it's not a biological or behavioural feature of people; it's a legal status. — Michael
If humans are conscious and if consciousness is non-biological then consciousness is evidence that humans are more than biological organisms. — Michael
We don't know whether or not consciousness is biological and so we don't know whether or not humans are just biological organisms. — Michael
But the existence of 'an immaterial entity' was not the point at issue. The claim being considered was this:
It (the act of typing) is physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.
What is the non-physical part? A sub-space where my consciousness resides?
— Philosophim
The interpretation of meaning. The constant, underlying, subliminal processes of 'this means that', 'this is that', 'this word has that meaning' - otherwise known as judgement. That is not a physical process. — Wayfarer
It is a philosophical argument: that the act of rational judgement is not reducible to the physical or explainable in physical terms. — Wayfarer
Consider what is involved in judgement - every time you make an argument, you're inferring causal relations and equivalences, saying that 'this means that....' or 'because of this, then....'. These processes inhere entirely in the relations of ideas. And evidence for that claim has already been given, which is that the same ideas can be expressed in an endless variety of physical forms whilst still retaining their meaning. — Wayfarer
Humans are metaphysical beings because they can see meaning above and beyond the sensory. They seek to understand principles and causes. — Wayfarer
As far as the effects of drugs and inebriants on the brain, it is obvious that this is so. But it does not establish that consciousness is a product of the brain. It is still quite feasible that the brain as a central organ behaves in the sense of a receiver — Wayfarer
That is the Hard Problem. "Through our physical brain" is a where, not a how. "In the sky" does not tell us how flight is accomplished. "In our legs" does not tell us how walking is accomplished. "In our brain" does not tell us how consciousness is accomplished. The details are not insignificant. They are remarkably important. And they are unknown. — Patterner
:100:What we do know is that there is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere apart from biological organisms, so we really have zero reason to think that consciousness can exist apart from biological organisms, and every reason to think it cannot. — Janus
:up: :up:If by "we don't know" you mean that it hasn't been proven, then I agree; nothing in science has been proven. — Janus
Yes, judgement is a physical process by your brain. — Philosophim
No, it’s an intellectual process. 2+2=4 is an intellectual operation. There is no such thing as ‘=‘ in the physical world, it is an abstraction. — Wayfarer
Behavior is not consciousness. That's stimulus and response. How do you behave when something sharp pokes into your back? How do you behave when your energy levels are depleted? These are not questions of consciousness.Subjective consciousness is not empirically observable. Behavioral consciousness is. — Philosophim
It's a mystery because nobody can explain it. Christof Koch can't, try though he does. You are not even offering speculations. You only say it happens in the brain. That's obviously where my consciousness is. But what is the mechanism?The only reason its a mystery is you think that its impossible for consciousness to come out of physical matter and energy. Why? It clearly does. — Philosophim
Not for me. I don't care what the answer is. I just want to know what it is.Is it some necessary desire that we want ourselves to be above physical reality? — Philosophim
If it was not a mystery, we would have the answer. We don't. The resistance, in my case, is that the answer of "It just does" to the question of "How does the physical brain produce consciousness?" is no answer at all. Just as we wouldn't accept that answer to "How does eating food give us energy?", we shouldn't accept it here.Because if you eliminate that desire, its clear as day that consciousness is physical by even a cursory glance into medicine and brain research. I just don't get the mystery or the resistance. — Philosophim
Yes it is. That's what is meant when people refer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness.That is the Hard Problem. "Through our physical brain" is a where, not a how. "In the sky" does not tell us how flight is accomplished. "In our legs" does not tell us how walking is accomplished. "In our brain" does not tell us how consciousness is accomplished. The details are not insignificant. They are remarkably important. And they are unknown.
— Patterner
Sure, but its not the hard problem. — Philosophim
Many books and articles on consciousness have appeared in the past few years, and one might think that we are making progress. But on a closer look, most of this work leaves the hardest problems about consciousness untouched. Often, such work addresses what might be called the “easy” problems of consciousness: How does the brain process environmental stimulation? How does it integrate information? How do we produce reports on internal states? These are important questions, but to answer them is not to solve the hard problem: Why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?
In philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experiences. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how physical systems give a (healthy) human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioral functions such as watching, listening, speaking (including generating an utterance that appears to refer to personal behaviour or belief), and so forth. The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation: that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioral, as each physical system can be explained (at least in principle) purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon.
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject.
The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?
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