I don't know if we can set consciousness aside in any aspect of voice or gait, but we can't in all of them. The most obvious is timbre. Why do a trumpet, French horn, and trombone have different timbres? As with bananas, avocados, and tomatoes having different colors, one part of the answer is purely physics. The air going through a tube of this diameter and length vibrates differently than the air going through a tube of that diameter and length. Same with our voices. No two people have identical vocal cords or throats, so the purely physical vibrations that our speech produce in the air cannot be the same, even if just holding one vowel.

But part of the answer is consciousness. Qualia don't exist without consciousness. An electronic device that registers and compares the two of us just holding one vowel doesn't hear timbre any more than another device sees the colors of avocados, bananas, and tomatoes.

Sorry, I can't post anymore at the moment. Just beginning what is going to be a fairly horrifying day of work.

This is all pitiful pseudoscience—“you can't get out what you don't put in”— baloney. — T Clark

I have sometimes used analogies to try to get this idea across. But I really don't think it's necessary. Do you think you can make something non-physical with only physical building materials?

Coordinate geometry does in fact represent a line as a combination of points. Of course, it is not just a combination of points, it is points plus structure. But then nothing is just some other thing, otherwise it would be that other thing. Water is not just hydrogen and oxygen, but you do get water with all its uniquely watery properties from those two very un-water-like substances - no alchemy involved. — SophistiCat

The point is more along the lines of you can't gather water in any amount, or in any configuration, and end up with wood.

No, speculation is fine. My speculated answer is quite different from that most people here, but we're all just speculating. Speculation is the first step. So far, we haven't been able to figure out how to test any.

We are fully in the realm of "the hard problem of consciousness." We've discussed it here on the forum many times. Some people think it's a big deal. Others, including me, just don't get why it's considered a problem at all. — T Clark

Because there is no explanation, from any side of the hundred-sided fence, that is more than speculation.

Never the twain shall meet. I'm not particularly interested in taking it up now. — T Clark

Fair enough.

Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter.
— Patterner

Of course it is. It may not tell us all we need to know, but there is not just one way of studying. — T Clark

We are inferring the existence of dark matter by studying the movement of galaxies. We are not learning anything else about it in this manner, and can't study it in any other manner.

That sounds about right.

However, it implies that the speaker is in possession of the absolute truth, and that therefore, anyone else's "truth" is false, which is both a thought-stopper and conversation-stopper. — Peter Gray

I think it does the opposite. "THE truth" would be a claim of having the absolute truth. "My truth" is what works for me. "Your truth" is what works for you.

"We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity" is an important thing.
— Patterner

This isn’t entirely true. Certainly there’s a lot that needs to be explained, but that’s true of many scientific inquiries. I don’t think it’s true that any aspect of consciousness or the mind in general cannot be studied effectively by science. — T Clark

I don't think being able to scientifically study various aspects of consciousness means we "understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity." Tse obviously doesn't, either.

Can you tell me which aspects of consciousness have been studied by science? I know there has been a lot of work done on the neural correlates of consciousness. But that's about which parts of the brain are active when specific thoughts and/or feelings are being reported. I have not heard how a part of the brain, or the physical activity taking place in it, has a felt experience if itself. Which I guess explains why I've never heard them called the "neural causes of consciousness."

I have Antonio Damasio's “Feeling and Knowing.” I really like it. But I don't see him addressing this. He says x, y, and z are happening, but not how those events have a felt experience of themselves. As Chalmers says in in The Conscious Mind:

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

You will only observe the telltale signs, functions and behavior of consciousness from the conscious living people and animals. — Corvus

Yes. Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter.

I've never quite gotten the fascination consciousness has for people around here, why it seems so super special, and it's because we start from very different ideas about—among other things, probably—the unity of science. — Srap Tasmaner

Why do people everywhere have fascination for mathematics, quantum physics, music, philosophy, history? What is it confusing that people have a fascination for this particular topic?

It's the very last thing anybody would give up. If someone was going to strip you of one off the following - vision, hearing, ability to do even simple math, all memories of some particular topic, anything what you would care to name - OR your consciousness, which would you rather keep than consciousness? You have to lose one of those things OR consciousness. What would the other option have to be for you to say, "I absolutely cannot give that up. Take my consciousness."

Okay, I think I get it now. You and Clarendon believe that all natural science can be reduced to physics, and that all natural phenomena can be explained by physics, with the sole exception of consciousness. Yes? — Srap Tasmaner

And, of course, anything that owes its existence to consciousness. For example, poetry, music, and art.

Can you give me an example of anything other than consciousness and its creations that cannot be explained by physics?

No. You’re right. I used the wrong word, although what I said applies to consciousness as well. — T Clark

Applying consciousness to what you said:
"Have you read any cognitive science or evolutionary psychology related to the origin of consciousness? This is a well studied subject, although there are lots of questions that remain unanswered."
Which questions have been answered? Do you have any reading suggestions on this? I can't make head or tail of Peter Tse, but he starts The Neural Basis of Free Will by dating:

The deepest problems have yet to be solved. We do not understand the neural code. We do not understand how mental events can be causal. We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity. — Peter Tse

"We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity" is an important thing. If someone has written that we do understand this, I am extremely interested.

"Account for"? Meaning what, exactly? That you could deduce the great variety of living things on earth just from studying carbon and hydrogen and oxygen and so on? Could you instead study electrons and neutrinos and photons and whatnot, and get even better results? — Srap Tasmaner

Meaning things like redox reactions and the electron transport chain. We understand how those things work, and how they cause protons to build up in one area, the way electrons are gathered in one area of a battery. We understand how the buildup of particles with the same charge builds up pressure in that area, and how the release of that pressure is used to make ATP. We understand how breaking the bond between phosphate groups of the ATP releases energy, which is used to power cell functions.

If the properties of primary particles were different than they are, we would not have the atoms, molecules, cells, or anything else in the universe, that we have.

Gravity was always a physical magnitude governed by laws. What changed was the theory, not the kind of thing being explained. No new ontological category appeared. — Clarendon

Right. Despite not knowing how gravity came about, its effect could be measured. Newton was able to write a mathematical formula, which could be used to predict where things, even astronomical bodies, would be in the future, as well as figure out where they were in the past. There's nothing measurable about consciousness or its effects.

The real problem - one that I, at least, can see 'is' a problem - is that you can't get out what you don't put in. For example, you can't make something that has size by combining lots of sizeless things. That's just not going to work. The only way to make a sized thing, is to combine things of size - no size in, no size out. — Clarendon

You can't make non-physical things out of physical things.

Similarly then, you aren't going to be able to make a conscious object out of objects that are not already conscious (or at least disposed to be). For that would be alchemy. Call it 'strong emergence' if one wants - but that's just a label for what is in fact something coming from nothing. Thus, as our brains are made out of atoms, then either atoms have consciousness (or are disposed to) or brains simply can't have consciousness.
— Clarendon

Have you read any cognitive science or evolutionary psychology related to the origin of intelligence? This is a well studied subject, although there are lots of questions that remain unanswered. Your explanation comes across as more “seems to me” science without any particular evidence backing it up. Seems to me it’s wrong. — T Clark

Clarendon was talking about consciousness. Are you saying intelligence and consciousness are the same thing?

This discussion has a problem which is common to this type of discussion— they fail to define what they mean by “consciousness.” — T Clark

That is one of the two main problems. The other is that few agree on any definition.

Examples are not only plentiful, I suspect almost everything, living or nonliving, that everyone on this site has ever interacted with has properties its constituents lack. It is the norm. It is what nature does. Criminy. — Srap Tasmaner

But those properties can be explained by the properties of the constituents. Individual atoms aren't solid. But we know how the properties of individual atoms explain solidity in groups of atoms. We know how the properties of individual molecules of H2O explain the fact that solid water floats in liquid water.

We know how the properties of the atoms and molecules of living things account for metabolism.

We have no guess as to how the properties of atoms, or molecules, or cells, or any kind of structures, explains consciousness.

I'm a property dualist. I don't think consciousness is something separate from the body. I think it is a property of everything, every particle, like mass and charge. You can't remove mass from matter, and you can't remove consciousness from matter.

Would you, for instance, accept that physicalism is unable to account for consciousness? — Tom Storm

I am very firmly in that camp.

This post has several of the usual quotes about it.

Consciousness is not physical. Although it is inextricably bound to the physical, and doesn't exist without a physical component (at least we are not aware of any consciousness without a physical component), it is not, itself, physical. It does not have any physical properties, like charge, mass, density, hardness. It does not have physical characteristics, like size, hardness, and weight. We cannot measure it's speed, direction, or any other characteristics of physical processes. It cannot be sensed with any of our senses, or our technology. It is not describable with mathematics.

Physical things - objects and/or processes - build physical things. There is no logic or evidence for the idea that physical things can build non-physical things. And there is no theory, not even a guess from those who assume physicalism must be the answer to consciousness, as to how it can happen.

It doesn't make sense for purely physical structures and processes to evolve for purely physical reasons, without consciousness being selected for, without anything directing the evolution in order to bring about consciousness, yet one day find themselves in a configuration from which consciousness emerges. That scenario is absolutely bizarre.

I think everything is just stuff. I think everything has a non-physical property. An experiential property. Which doesn't mean everything is thinking. But everything is experiencing.

Premise 2: Physical causes and effects, by themselves, have no meaning or “aboutness.” — Tom Storm

Actually, I disagree with this one, also. :grin: But, iirc, you disagree with my reason. I think DNA means something it is not. I think the codons mean amino acids, and the strings of codons mean proteins. And teams of molecules use that information to assemble the amino acids and proteins. Meaning without thinking or intelligence.

Which means I disagree with Premise 4.

But I like 3!

How would you change that premise to retain the thrust of the argument? — Tom Storm

I can't imagine. I think three of his four premises are wrong, so they cannot lead to his conclusion. I think he needs another argument entirely to come to that conclusion.

Premise 1: Naturalism explains everything in terms of physical causes and effects.
Premise 2: Physical causes and effects, by themselves, have no meaning or “aboutness.”
Premise 3: Human thoughts, beliefs, and concepts are intentional—they are about things and can be true or false.
Premise 4: Intentionality (aboutness, meaning, truth) cannot be reduced to or derived from purely physical processes.
Conclusion: Therefore, naturalism cannot fully explain intentionality; the intelligibility of thought points beyond purely naturalistic causes.

Premise 4 would be the most controversial one. It's actually this premise I want elaboration on. It’s interesting because, instead of obsessing over consciousness, this argument treats a single attribute as foundational to a rather complex argument. — Tom Storm

Premise 1 is the one I think is flawed. Natural and physical are not synonyms. Anything in this universe is natural. It can't be otherwise. If there is something non-physical in this universe, then it is natural, and can be part of the explanation of some things.

We are living, thinking expressions of the principles of the universe. I think it wouldn't make sense if an entity with whatever minimal degree of mental ability that tried to understand the principles of the universe from which it grew couldn't recognize them. We evolved to recognize patterns
— Patterner

I’m certainly aware that this is a commonly held view. I don’t know whether it’s correct. — Tom Storm

Which part do you question? That there are consistent principles at work in the universe? That our evolution took place within those principles, and we operate within them and they operate within us? That success for a living thing means continued life, and we would not continue to live if we didn't recognize the consistencies?

By that last one, I mean an archae would not survive if its archaellum (flagellum) didn't act consistently to the signals it receives, or it receives inconsistent signals. On another level, we would not survive if we did not react consistently to the visual stimulus of approaching cars, or the signals from our retinas regarding approaching cars was inconsistent.

I can't help you with Hart. But it's not just our experience of the world that suggests those patterns, it's everything about our physical construction. We are living, thinking expressions of the principles of the universe. I think it wouldn't make sense if an entity with whatever minimal degree of mental ability that tried to understand the principles of the universe from which it grew couldn't recognize them. We evolved to recognize patterns. If there is consistency, and we can't recognize it, we die. How could we develop a mathematical system in which 2+2=17?

The universe has order, regularities, patterns. If it did not, it would not exist. If protons sometimes stuck to each other when they were pressed close enough together, but not other times; or if opposite charges sometimes attracted each other, but not always; or if light sometimes traveled at c, but not always; or if 1+1 sometimes equaled 2 bit not always... What would such a reality look like?

But in this reality, things are consistent. And our brains - as well as everything else in the universe - came to be, and are founded, in those consistent principles. Why would our brains not recognize them?

I guess this is as tricky as anything else, eh? :grin:

I've never heard of this line of thinking, so I can't say further thought and discussion on it won't change my mind. But at the moment, my stance is no, there is no proposition outside of the thoughts of those entities who understand what is being discussed. If Props A and B can, or should, or will lead to C, it will only be in the thoughts of such entities. Write A and B, and all the rules and explanations of Propositions, in a book, and it will never lead to C until such an entity reads it and thinks the next step.

↪Patterner Perhaps someday we will. But, I don't disagree. I mean, how many "thoughts start in the Gut?" For lack of better wording... consciousness is merely the final plane of awareness. That said I believe will on will is the only causality. The inner will of energy being "the will to power." — DifferentiatingEgg

I can't say I fully understand what you mean, but I like the direction you're going. What is "will on will"? Are you saying only agents with will can cause anything?

The question of causation only enters, possibly, when a particular mind thinks Prop A and Prop B. — J

I don't follow. What else could it be other than thoughts? Certainly, if you write Props A and B in a book, and even if you also write everything about syllogisms, then close the book, Prop C isn't going to spontaneously appear in the book. But explain syllogisms to someone, then let them hear or read Props A and B, and...

In what way can a proposition be "merely" a proposition, and not a thought?

And clearly it's contingent: If I'm simply no good at elementary logic, thinking Props A and B will not cause me to think Prop C, no matter the entailment. — J

That's true. But Props A and B will cause some thought or other. Possibly "What the hell are they talking about? Who is Socrates?" That didn't spring into the person's thoughts for no reason.

Can you give me an example of the kind of proposition you have in mind?

I really don't know what you mean by entailment. I don't think there's any such thing as a "correct conclusion" where this topic is concerned. It's not a math problem. One thought causes another thought. Largely because of memories it triggers. It might also be influenced by other thoughts that are bouncing around in your mind at the same time, medical and environmental factors that are also in play at the time, and whatever other things. But A, B, and C would almost certainly not be thinking the consequent thoughts they have if I hadn't put Kant in their minds, and it is very likely they would be thinking their consequent thoughts after I put Kant in their minds, regardless of any factors other than memory.

Thanks for all that! I'll have to look up most of what you're saying to try to figure out what you're saying.

Or, if they are not causal in this sense, don't we need another explanation besides logical entailment? If I think "If A, then B; A" and then think "therefore B", has entailment produced this result? — J

Yes.

If I put the thought Kant in person A's head, their next thought is Critique of Pure Reason.
If I put Kant in B's head, their next thought is Monty Python.
If I put Kant in C's head, their next thought is West Wing.

None of the consequent thoughts, Critique of Pure Reason, Monty Python, or West Wing, would be thoughts of those respective people if Kant had not come first. All were caused by Kant. But there are obviously other factors, or all would have had the same consequent thought. Each person's consequent thought logically followed Kant, because each person has different memories associated with Kant.

That's how one thought causes another.

The final phenomena appears before our consciousness — DifferentiatingEgg

It seems to me figuring out what that means/how it works is the most important thing. And we all have different guesses.

Surely, a thought needs to be thought?
— Patterner

This again brings up the equivocation in what the word "thought" can represent -- either a proposition, or the mental/brain event whose content is that proposition. — J

Whatever the definition, a thought has to be thought. I wasn't sure if jkop was saying otherwise.

I think the relation between thoughts is logical, not causal. The necessity of a conclusion that follows from a set of premises is a brute fact that does not need to be thought or caused. — jkop

Surely, a thought needs to be thought?

Indeed, a coordinate system is an abstraction and thus can have its origin placed anywhere. My only nit on your post is the 13.5 BLY. Why that? Certainly somebody could place an origin a trillion LY from here without running into problems. Our particular typical assignment of 'here' does not concern any part of the universe that has not dependence on human notice. — noAxioms

True enough. I just went with the known universe.

I mean, there can be multiple heres and nows, but still the fact is that I'm only seeing one of them, and how come it's this one if they are all here and now, shouldn't I be seeing them all? — bizso09

No. Because, while you are here, experiencing this coordinate zero, other coordinate zeros are everywhere, in all directions, up to about 13.5 BLY from you. How could you experience the coordinate zero that Arcturus experiences?

argue that in the world, the You is an absolute global unique fact. It's coordinate zero so to speak. There are no multiple coordinate zeros, unless there are multiple disjoint worlds, at which point one of the worlds would become the true coordinate zero again. — bizso09

The are multiple coordinate zeros in regards to cosmology. I don't see all of this as a contradiction. I just see it as us not understanding things as well as as we could, and hopefully will. It's not how we think of things. Yet it's true.

No, it's not a fifth person. It is merely a reference point, or pointer, i.e. a window of first person perspective. It is not a physical being, soul or spirit, but merely just an additional fact of the world. The physical beings are the four people listed in the puzzle, along with their respective experiences. — bizso09

Ah. I also misunderstood.

Well, for sure, the world is not self-contradictory.

I think the assumption that "you" has a referent separate from Bob or Alice is the problem.

EITHER there's some spirit soul thing, a ghost going around to these bodies inhabiting them, in which case there's no paradox because there is a real difference

OR there are not these spirits and souls, and then there's no "you" that isn't synonymous with Bob, or synonymous with Alice, and there's no paradox. — flannel jesus

If I have a soul that goes into another body, then it's still me. No?

If I do not have a soul, then there is nothing to go into another body.

No contradiction either way.

I think a 'you' already implies a particular biological being so that you cannot just transport a non-physical kind of essence of a 'you' that stays the same to another body. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes. There is no "This is what it's like for me to be Alice" and "This is what it's like for me to be Bob".

Specifically the book Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. This is a Sōtō Zen text which stresses the 'ordinary mind' practice. Ordinary mind teachings suggest that enlightenment is not a distant, supernatural state to be achieved in a future life, but is found in the natural, unconditioned state of one’s own mind during everyday activities. — Wayfarer

"If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special."

Where is the quote about before you attain enlightenment, you put on your robe and eat your rice. But after you obtain enlightenment, you put on your robe and eat your rice.

Edit:. I might be thinking the same book.
"To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism."

But at the same time, this "ordinary" mind is not the habitual, reactive mind filled with habitual tendencies, judgment and grasping, but rather a state of "no-doing" or wu wei. — Wayfarer

Yet nothing is left undone.

The idea would be more that energy is fundamentally intelligent, directed. — Janus

Can you say anything else about this? Any idea how energy is intelligent? (I agree that it is not the same as consciousness.) What is the intelligence directed towards, and how is the intelligence accomplished?

This is what I think I understand: the mind is not a detached observer, and the body is not merely a machine. They exist together, intertwined within a single field of lived experience. From this perspective, the traditional problem of interaction or dualism might be said to dissolve. Phenomenology does not assume that mind and body are two independent entities that must somehow be connected. Instead, it understands them as co-emerging, inseparable aspects of the way we inhabit and experience the world. Yet it seems to me we can ask whether this really addresses the heart of the mind–body problem, or simply reframes it in a more elegant way, substituting abstract categories like “lived experience” for concrete questions about causality, consciousness, and physical reality that first give rise to the apparent problem. — Tom Storm

Indeed. certainly, mind and body are one, and inseparable. But, for those interested in such things, we still need an explanation.