Maybe so. But not understanding how it works is certainly not any sort of evidence that it is a physical process.But not understanding how something works is not any sort of evidence that it isn't still a physical process. — noAxioms
1. Arrival of Action Potential:
The action potential travels down the axon of the presynaptic neuron and reaches the axon terminal.
2. Calcium Influx:
The arrival of the action potential opens voltage-gated calcium channels at the axon terminal.
Calcium ions (Ca2+) flow into the neuron.
3. Fusion of Synaptic Vesicles:
Ca2+ binds to proteins on the synaptic vesicles, which are small membrane-bound structures containing neurotransmitters.
This binding triggers the fusion of the synaptic vesicles with the presynaptic membrane.
4. Neurotransmitter Release:
As the vesicles fuse, the neurotransmitters are released into the synaptic cleft, the space between the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons.
5. Diffusion and Binding:
The released neurotransmitters diffuse across the synaptic cleft and bind to receptors on the postsynaptic neuron.
6. Termination of Neurotransmitter Action:
Neurotransmitters are eventually removed from the synaptic cleft by reuptake into the presynaptic neuron, enzymatic breakdown, or diffusion away from the receptors.
Resting Membrane Potential: In a resting neuron, the inside of the cell is more negative than the outside, establishing a resting membrane potential (around -70 mV).
Threshold: A stimulus, often in the form of chemical signals from other neurons (neurotransmitters), causes the membrane to depolarize (become less negative). If this depolarization reaches a critical "threshold" level (e.g., -55 mV), it triggers an action potential.
Depolarization: At threshold, voltage-gated sodium channels open rapidly, allowing a large influx of positively charged sodium ions into the cell. This makes the inside of the neuron rapidly more positive.
Repolarization: Sodium channels then inactivate, and voltage-gated potassium channels open, allowing positively charged potassium ions to flow out of the cell. This efflux of potassium ions causes the membrane potential to become more negative again, moving it back towards the resting potential.
Hyperpolarization: The potassium channels may remain open a bit longer than needed, causing the membrane potential to dip below the resting potential before they close.
Return to Rest: Finally, ion pumps (like the sodium-potassium pump) restore the resting membrane potential, preparing the neuron for another action potential.
Do you have any thoughts on how that works? Why are progressions of physical arrangements self-aware?It seems to meet you are saying brain states and conscious events are the same thing. So the arrangements of all the particles of the brain, which are constantly changing, and can only change according to the laws of physics that govern their interactions, ARE my experience of seeing red; feeling pain; thinking of something that doesn't exist, and going through everything to make it come into being; thinking of something that can't exist; on and on. It is even the case that the progressions of brain states are the very thoughts of thinking about themselves.
Is that how you see things?
I'm willing to accept all that without edit. A few asterisks perhaps, but still yes. — noAxioms
I see.Well, if we can in principle explain our reports and behaviors regarding our own conscious experiences in terms of physics and biology, and epiphenomenalism is ridiculous, then this suggests that a coherent view of these kinds of metaphysics has to be monistic, if thats the right word. — Apustimelogist
I think I'm thinking what AI is thinking. I would bet anything nobody used the phrase "racial privilege" in the US the 1700s. But, holy cow, it existed. Many never considered it was anything but the natural order. Even those who opposed slavery probably didn't think of those words. But they thought about what was happened.I can't really imagine how people would have thought to even consider self-esteem prior to the 20th century. It feels like an outcome of the Enlightenment and post-WW2 prosperity. I doubt it had much global resonance prior to the 21st century, although AI tells me it is a universal concept? — Jeremy Murray
Can you elaborate?Or maybe the dualism of physical and mental is illusory with regard to fundamental metaphysics. — Apustimelogist
The "first person" part is not a mystery, as you say. It's the "experience" part that is the mystery.So it seems difficult to see how any system, if it experiences at all, can experience anything but itself. That makes first-person experience not mysterious at all. — noAxioms
The mystery is how it experiences at all.
— Patterner
OK, but experience seems almost by definition first person, so my comment stands. — noAxioms
So then you don't think consciousness has any bearing on anything? It is epiphenomenal?To me, they would if they had exactly the same brains as us but just devoid of any "lights on" inside. My impression is that there is nothing really in biology that suggests we couldn't explain our behavior entirely in terms of the mechanics of brains, at least in principle. — Apustimelogist
Panpsychism is sometimes caricatured as the view that fundamental physical entities such as electrons have thoughts; that electrons are, say, driven by existential angst. However, panpsychism as defended in contemporary philosophy is the view that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous, where to be conscious is simply to have subjective experience of some kind. This doesn’t necessarily imply anything as sophisticated as thoughts.
Of course in human beings consciousness is a sophisticated thing, involving subtle and complex emotions, thoughts and sensory experiences. But there seems nothing incoherent with the idea that consciousness might exist in some extremely basic forms. We have good reason to think that the conscious experiences a horse has are much less complex than those of a human being, and the experiences a chicken has are much less complex than those of a horse. As organisms become simpler perhaps at some point the light of consciousness suddenly switches off, with simpler organisms having no subjective experience at all. But it is also possible that the light of consciousness never switches off entirely, but rather fades as organic complexity reduces, through flies, insects, plants, amoeba, and bacteria. For the panpsychist, this fading-whilst-never-turning-off continuum further extends into inorganic matter, with fundamental physical entities – perhaps electrons and quarks – possessing extremely rudimentary forms of consciousness, which reflects their extremely simple nature.
Even a photon has some degree of consciousness. The idea is not that photons are intelligent, or thinking. You know, it’s not that a photon is wracked with angst because it’s thinking, "Aaa! I'm always buzzing around near the speed of light! I never get to slow down and smell the roses!" No, not like that. But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness.
I don't like Skrbina's use of "mind" in this way. I think it leads to confusion.Minds of atoms may conceivably be, for example, a stream of instantaneous memory-less moments of experience.
That's all any theory of consciousness is. And that's playing fast and loose with the definition of "theory". Who is making predictions with their theory, and testing them? Nobody has anything. But, imo, it's the most fascinating topic there is, so here I am :grin:It's not as if any other philosophy of mind can provide more than handwaving by way of explanation, so I'm not seeing how this amounts to more than advancing an argument from incredulity against physicalism. — wonderer1
But the question remains: Why does either stoned me or unstoned me have a subjective experience of our condition? Both experience their physically different statuses. But why aren't the physically different statuses simply physical?For example consider the case of yourself listening to music in the sensory deprivation tank, as compared to an identica! version of you with the exception of a heightened cannabinoid level in your blood. The two versions of you would have different experiences, and this is most parsimoniously explained by the difference in physical constitution of stoned you vs unstoned you. — wonderer1
The mystery is how it experiences at all. Why should bioelectric activity traveling aling neurons, neurotransmitters jumping synapses, etc., be conscious? There's nothing about physical activity, which there's no reason to think could not take place without consciousness, that suggests consciousness.So it seems difficult to see how any system, if it experiences at all, can experience anything but itself. That makes first-person experience not mysterious at all. — noAxioms
There is no analogous further question in the explanation of genes, or of life, or of learning. If someone says “I can see that you have explained how DNA stores and transmits hereditary information from one generation to the next, but you have not explained how it is a gene”, then they are making a conceptual mistake. All it means to be a gene is to be an entity that performs the relevant storage and transmission function. But if someone says “I can see that you have explained how information is discriminated, integrated, and reported, but you have not explained how it is experienced”, they are not making a conceptual mistake.
This is a nontrivial further question. This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn’t all this information-processing go on “in the dark”, free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. — David Chalmers
Why should there be conscious experience at all? It is central to a subjective viewpoint, but from an objective viewpoint it is utterly unexpected. Taking the objective view, we can tell a story about how fields, waves, and particles in the spatiotemporal manifold interact in subtle ways, leading to the development of complex systems such as brains. In principle, there is no deep philosophical mystery in the fact that these systems can process information in complex ways, react to stimuli with sophisticated behavior, and even exhibit such complex capacities as learning, memory, and language. All this is impressive, but it is not metaphysically baffling. In contrast, the existence of conscious experience seems to be a new feature from this viewpoint. It is not something that one would have predicted from the other features alone.
That is, consciousness is surprising. If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted; almost mystical, perhaps. — Chalmers
Why should it be that consciousness seems to be so tightly correlated with activity that is utterly different in nature than conscious experience? — Donald Hoffman
And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings? — Greene
Your other question is, why does it feel like something? That we don't know. and the weird situation we're in in modern neuroscience, of course, is that, not only do we not have a theory of that, but we don't know what such a theory would even look like. Because nothing in our modern mathematics says, "Ok, well, do a triple interval and carry the 2, and then *click* here's the taste of feta cheese. — David Eagleman
It's not just that we don't have scientific theories. We don't have remotely plausible ideas about how to do it. — Donald Hoffman
We don't have a clue. Even those who assume it must be physical, because physical is all we can perceive and measure with our senses and devices, don't have any guesses. Even if he could make something up to explain how it could work, Crick couldn't think of anything.“Can you explain,” I asked, “how neural activity causes conscious experiences, such as my experience of the color red?” “No,” he said. “If you could make up any biological fact you want,” I persisted, “can you think of one that would let you solve this problem?” “No,” he replied, but added that we must pursue research in neuroscience until some discovery reveals the solution. — Donald Hoffman
The DVDs came out years ago. With extreme anticipation, I waited for S3E19, Wake Up Call. A great episode. Shelly shed her skin, Maggie meet the were-bear, and the first appearance of Leonard, among other things. And it ended with "Coolin Medley" by The Chieftans. Such beautiful, fitting music for the ending.Hi Patterner, it's fun to talk about Northern Exposure! Sadly overlooked. I read somewhere that the show was hard to get for years due to licensing issues with all the music they used to play at the Brick. That was the first time I ever heard a lot of different music on TV. Daniel Lanois springs to mind. — Jeremy Murray
Maurice is something else! Not an ignorant Archie Bunker. Great conversation when he was telling Chris how he felt about his Korean son.Strangely, Maurice emerged as another upon a recent repeat viewing. They put that guys flaws under the microscope, but he was no caricature. His growth during the episode featuring Ron and Eric's wedding was genuinely moving. — Jeremy Murray
"Chris, no matter how you explain this thing, it's a nightmare. This man is my son. I don't like the way he looks. I don't like the way he talks. I don't like what he eats."
"Well, if it's any consolation, Maurice, you know, your feelings aren't instinctual."
"No?"
"No. It's cultural."
"Well, how the hell could that be a consolation?"
"It's learned behavior."
"So?"
"So, you can unlearn it."
Maybe it took the rationalistic, westernized notion of the individual to figure out a problem that had been around all along? I don't know. I never considered it.I don't have my copy of Twenge's book handy, and don't have the facility with philosophy that many round here do to pull from ... but it's a pretty modern concept. Where do we see examples of 'self-esteem' in say the works of Shakespeare, for example? The self-loathing of Hamlet is not the inverse of self-esteem.
The rationalistic, westernized notion of the individual seems necessary for discussions of self-esteem? — Jeremy Murray
I've never studied anyrhing relevant, but it seems to me it's possible that it was always there, but nobody thought to name it?self-esteem is a pretty modern concept. I don't think it would have applied to Cortez, and doubt that it did for Hitler. — Jeremy Murray
Yes. But I don't see that as a bad thing. I mean, he's the wisest one on the show. A lot of them are wise. It might not be as obvious with Shelly, because she was usually taking about her nipples or butt when making her point. But she knew what she was talking about.I also found Leonard to be a bit of a 'magical native' trope. — Jeremy Murray
Yes, brilliant!I will always remember watching the episode 'Cicely' as a teen. That changed my concept of storytelling forever. — Jeremy Murray
I have not. Earthsea is my favorite series of books every. (Tied with a few others.) But I haven't read most of her other stuff. Guess I should check it out.Did you ever read the “Lathe of Heaven” by Ursula LeGuin? It’s not exactly what you described but it has a lot in common. Really good book. Pretty good movie. — T Clark
Not for me. I feel many choices as I'm making them. I struggle with them, looking for a reason too give one option a leg up. Yesterday, I had two scoops of salted caramel ice cream, and one chocolate. (Plus toppings, and a brookie at the bottom.) It took some time to decide. I find the notion that I am an automoton, unable to do more than act out the resolution of all the bioelectric signals jumping around in my brain, and the specifics of (in this example) how I go about eating my dessert determined in the same way, to be preposterous.Consider why it seems like we could have: it's entirely in retrospect. — Relativist
I don't know if anyone at all agrees with me, but I say the order of the bases in DNA mean amino acids and proteins.This makes me wonder, what would count as meaning that is independent or external to human thought? — Tom Storm
I do agree. But your wording makes me wonder if we view it differently. There is meaning, and there is order. We find those things.We know there is an impulse in human beings to make meaning and wrest order out of chaos
— Tom Storm
Why is that?
— Patterner
You agree with this? I imagine it’s for facilitating survival and attempting to manage our environment. Making the wrong choice can harm or kill us. But it’s obviously more nuanced than my couple of sentences. — Tom Storm
I hadn't noticed.Good grief, it is hard to be human. — Athena
It would make things easier if only intentional causes were called causes, and the other kind called something else.As a panpsychist I've been been considering whether the distinction between intentional cause and non intentional is sustainable. I think it may be, but the non intentional would be derived from the intentional. The only causes we actually know about are intentional. Other causes are often attributed to laws, which are descriptive and don't need the notion of cause to work, perhaps. Not sure. — bert1
Perhaps. But is it likely that someone who thinks they are perceiving an object is actually viewing an activity?Can you give an example of something a person is actually perceiving that does (edited to correct stupid autocorrect) not have temporal extension?
— Patterner
Any activity I suppose. At each moment it is new and different, therefore there is no temporal extension of any specific thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Can you give an example of something a person is actually perceiving that does (edited to correct stupid auto correct) not have temporal extension?but if "objects" doesn't fulfill the criteria for what the person is actually perceiving,
— Metaphysician Undercover
What are the criteria?
— Patterner
I would say that the single most important criterion for "object" is temporal extension. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why is that?We know there is an impulse in human beings to make meaning and wrest order out of chaos — Tom Storm
People in different areas have had to face different circumstances and challenges. Desert nomads know how to live under conditions that would kill people of a fishing village, and vice versa. What challenges can they solve by combining their ways and knowledge?Celebrate diversity as a strength that enriches our deeper collective consciousness. By accepting and embracing our differences, we fuel our collective strengths and struggles.
— RadicalJoe
Can you say how? — Tom Storm
What are the criteria?but if "objects" doesn't fulfill the criteria for what the person is actually perceiving, — Metaphysician Undercover
Yup. Also low self-esteem, since I can't resist quoting Northern Exposure. :grin:Fear is the slave driver of human kind, it has great utility as motivation, but if it's excessive and unreasonable one can easily be destroyed by it, or rendered stupid.
— Nils Loc
Absolutely agree with this. — AmadeusD
The best way is to not be offended. You do that by realizing you're talking to a bunch of anonymous people who, if you learned their names, would be total strangers. It's easy to be hurt by people we care for. Feelings of betrayal. Feelings of loss. They might have even used something personal to hurt you.When we are offended, what is the best way to handle this. — Athena
Oh! I didn't realize. I just thought it was a typo.↪Patterner Old. I am surprised that Apo was reduced to name calling so quickly. — Banno
That's excellent! You should change your name to Banjo!And here is Banjo to join the mean girls with his usual constipated approach to insult. — apokrisis
Good luck with that. :grin:I tried to keep human intention out of the question. — T Clark