Well, in the way philosophy pictures them yes. I moved the discussion here because the article above provides some history of the parallel picture that neuroscience labors under. Philosophy has never liked being wrong so the fact that we can be (and that we are responsible for that) leads it to create the conclusion that we must not have direct access to the world (or we are ensured it), that we only see the “appearance” of something, or that our individual perspective is somehow partial or lacking or individual (my “sensation” or “perception”). — Antony Nickles
There are plenty of good reasons, supported by science, to believe indirect realism over direct realism, as I discussed at length here. — Michael
my mind is the most real thing I know. — flannel jesus
When philosophers like Chalmers ask questions like "Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel?" they don't really mean 'why' in the sense of "what evolutionary benefit has it?" They're looking for a 'how', as in "Explain how, exactly, that information processing (or whatever function) somehow produces/causes/is-identical-with consciousness?" — bert1
But it leaves no evolutionary role for consciousness to play, which was wonderer1's point. — bert1
how "physical" neurons are produces/causes/is-identical-with "non-physical" consciousness — Harry Hindu
Sensation, let’s be clear, has a different function from perception. Both are forms of mental representation: ideas generated by the brain. But they represent – they are about – very different kinds of things. Perception – which is still partly intact in blindsight – is about ‘what’s happening out there in the external world’: the apple is red; the rock is hard; the bird is singing. By contrast, sensation is more personal, it’s about ‘what’s happening to me and how I as a subject evaluate it’: the pain is in my toe and horrible; the sweet taste is on my tongue and sickly; the red light is before my eyes and stirs me up. — Nicholas Humphrey
Let me emphasise: sensations are ideas. They are the way our brains represent what’s happening at our sense organs and how we feel about it. Their properties are to be explained, therefore, not literally as the properties of brain-states, but rather as the properties of mind-states dreamed up by the brain. — Nicholas Humphrey
Here is the transition from the description of an organism acting in a purely physical way, to a "subject" which can enter into subject-object relations -- in other words, a conscious being. Up to this point increasingly complex forms of data processing have been described, but without subjectivity. Now, as a deus ex machina, we have subjectivity. We are entitled to an account of how an organism evolves into a subject, but none is given. Yet, to be conscious is to be a subject able to enter into the subject-object relation of knowing.I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia. — Humphrey
Why would you expect this? Since unobserved physical processes are deterministic, any physical effect consciousness produces has to be something that is not determined by physics -- that treads on its toes. Why is that a bad thing? Physics is an abstraction. It is based on attending to physical phenomena while prescinding from the inseparable subjective phenomena. So, physics necessarily produces an incomplete picture of reality.Can you give an example of consciousness causing something in a way that doesn't tread on the toes of any physics? — bert1
What do you mean by "the fundamental" and why would it not interact when it acts? The only candidate I can think of is God, but there are no events in God.My intuition tells me that there's one really important boundary - the boundary between the fundamental, and everything else. The fundamental is causally closed, but all other layers can be argued to interact to each other and also to still be sensitive to fundamental-level events. — flannel jesus
Physics is an abstraction. It is based on attending to physical phenomena while prescinding from the inseparable subjective phenomena. So, physics necessarily produces an incomplete picture of reality. — Dfpolis
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying or how your explanation describes exactly how neurons "generate "images"". — Harry Hindu
how something that is "physical" can generate something "non-physical" — Harry Hindu
And how does something physical generate these experiences? You rightly asked. It doesn't generate anything real at all. These are "codes" hijacking feelings to create this illusion of meaning and that meaning matters. It doesn't. Matter matters. — ENOAH
I don't think a new reality is generated out of an existent other reality. I was referring to your use of the word, "generate". I didn't use the term. I initially responded to bert1's mention of the relations, "produces/causes/is-identical-with". I'm not a dualist. The dualist is the one with the hard problem, not a monist.At the clear-to-me risk, that in my insistence (as a courtesy) on brevity, I will repeat my failure, I may as well say something about this. It can happen because the physical, the only reality, is not really generating anything. That you think it is a new reality generated out of an existent utterly other reality, you are in the common human illusion. Or, you are, at least, mistaken. — ENOAH
None of this explains how an illusion is created by something that is not illusory. An illusion is a misinterpretation of sensory data, not that the data itself isn't real.I think traditional phenomenology, which addresses, as you raised, the problem of understanding objects as they "must be" vs as they "appear" to us; that is moving into new directions. One, is that the traditional did not throw its net out far enough. If it had, it would have left to Science how we sense red, or the aroma of coffee. The real question phenomenology is after is why we "experience" it as red. And this is the result of images, once constructed and saved in memory to trigger a feeling which in turn triggered a drive and action (like many sentient animal), now have developed into its own sophisticated system of constructing images (using neurons) to trigger ultimately feeling and action.
It is only because that once strictly organic system of conditioning responses for survival has evolved in humans into Mind, that "red" and "aroma" have meaning, a mechanism in the system wherein those once strictly organic feelings, are attached to Narratives--experiences.
And how does something physical generate these experiences? You rightly asked. It doesn't generate anything real at all. These are "codes" hijacking feelings to create this illusion of meaning and that meaning matters. It doesn't. Matter matters. — ENOAH
I agree. I define reality as a causally linked system.It seems to me that you do not mean by "reality" what most of us mean by it. Most of us mean by "reality" the kind of thing that we encounter in experience. When you say that reality does not generate real experience, you cannot possibly be using reality in this sense.
One test of whether something is real, is whether it can do something. Our experiences do many things. They inform us, modify our responses, etc. So, they pass the test. — Dfpolis
If there is some fundamental aspect to reality then wouldn't it follow that there is an aspect of reality that does not need a reason for happening. I mean, what does fundamental mean if not that there is some aspect that "just is". If not, then there would be an infinite regress of reasons, or reality is an infinite causal chain with no beginning and no end, or another possibility could be a loop of causality.As a theoretical physicist, I learned that whatever happens, happens for a reason, In physics, it is because there are laws of nature that make our observations turn out as they do. Over time physics has improved our descriptions of these laws -- call our descriptions "laws of physics". We do not try to explain the laws of nature, because that is not our remit, but that does not exempt them from also needing a reason for happening. Philosophy has the remit to provide that reason. So, what exempts your fundamental from the need for further explanation? — Dfpolis
he Munchausen trilemma is proof enough that there is some truth which has no explanation. Some truth(s) which form the basis for all other truths. — flannel jesus
If there is some fundamental aspect to reality then wouldn't it follow that there is an aspect of reality that does not need a reason for happening. I mean, what does fundamental mean if not that there is some aspect that "just is". If not, then there would be an infinite regress of reasons, or reality is an infinite causal chain with no beginning and no end, or another possibility could be a loop of causality. — Harry Hindu
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