Let's go over the other argument again. It's that qualia - such things as seeing colours - are essential to consciousness. But the very example you give shows that someone who cannot see colours - someone without qualia - would nevertheless be conscious.

What follows is that seeing colours - having qualia - is not constitutive of consciousness. — Banno

I can't imagine anyone's guess as to the nature of consciousness and how it comes into existence is such that the loss of the perception of color, or even vision entirely, would result in the loss of consciousness. I would not be surprised if most people think that you could lose all your senses, as well as your arms and legs, yet retain your consciousness.

But whether or not you, or anyone, think it would result in a total loss of consciousness, it is still in need of explanation. I think everyone in the world should watch all the Ninja Nerd videos that can. Here's one on The Phototransduction Cascade.. Just to give an ideas of the very beginning of the process, I wore a little from Michael Behe's in/famous Darwin's Black Box at the end. Agree or disagree with his conclusions or religious beliefs (I happen to disagree with both), he knows the science.

Nothing anywhere in these things suggests or hints at our experience of redness, or anything regarding consciousness. Colors aren't in these physical events. Yet we see colors. They are what is more important to us, and you would not willingly give them up.

When light first strikes the retina a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. (A picosecond is about the time it takes light to travel the breadth of a single human hair.) The change in the shape of the retinal molecule forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein’s metamorphosis alters its behavior. Now called metarhodopsin II, the protein sticks to another protein, called transducin. Before bumping into metarhodopsin II, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with metarhodopsin II, the GDP falls off, and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)

GTP-transducin-metarhodopsin II now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to metarhodopsin II and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the chemical ability to “cut” a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, just as a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.

Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane that, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.

If the reactions mentioned above were the only ones that operated in the cell, the supply of 11-cis-retinal, cGMP, and sodium ions would quickly be depleted. Something has to turn off the proteins that were turned on and restore the cell to its original state. Several mechanisms do this. First, in the dark the ion channel (in addition to sodium ions) also lets calcium ions into the cell. The calcium is pumped back out by a different protein so that a constant calcium concentration is maintained. When cGMP levels fall, shutting down the ion channel, calcium ion concentration decreases, too. The phosphodiesterase enzyme, which destroys cGMP, slows down at lower calcium concentration. Second, a protein called guanylate cyclase begins to resynthesize cGMP when calcium levels start to fall. Third, while all of this is going on, metarhodopsin II is chemically modified by an enzyme called rhodopsin kinase. The modified rhodopsin then binds to a protein known as arrestin, which prevents the rhodopsin from activating more transducin. So the cell contains mechanisms to limit the amplified signal started by a single photon.

Trans-retinal eventually falls off of rhodopsin and must be reconverted to 11-cis-retinal and again bound by rhodopsin to get back to the starting point for another visual cycle. To accomplish this, trans-retinal is first chemically modified by an enzyme to trans-retinol—a form containing two more hydrogen atoms. A second enzyme then converts the molecule to 11-cis-retinol. Finally, a third enzyme removes the previously added hydrogen atoms to form 11-cis-retinal, a cycle is complete. — Michael Behe

Rather, something seems to be added to all this activity (and thinking) which comes from a different category; it's not the same as putting enough molecules together in the right way so as to get liquidity. — J

I agree. But I'm thinking the "kind of" is key. Lower level properties account for higher level properties. At least they play a big role in the higher level properties, and the specific higher level properties would not exist if the lower level properties were different.

Micro properties can account for various higher level properties, such as liquidity and solidity.

Solidity can account for higher level properties, such as height and sharpness.

Consciousness can account for higher level properties, such as games with rules and mathematics.

What lower level properties account for consciousness, of course, is hotly debated.

Then qualia do not act as advertised; they are not private and ineffable. You have defended qualia to such an extent that they are no longer qualia. They are just colours and smells. — Banno

I have been explicitly saying qualia are colors and smells this whole time.

But your parable is cute. What it shows is that what matters for colour-talk is functional discrimination, not a private qualitative feel. You preserve the entire public language-game of colour, nothing is lost except the internal “what it’s like.” And crucially: nothing about the language-game depends on the missing qualia. You've shown that qualia do not do explanatory work. Cheers. "Colour experience” is a role in a language game, not some private essence. What we call “seeing blue” is just discriminating this from that, and responding appropriately in action and speech. — Banno

My thought experiment is about you/someone who has
known color your whole life. If you lost your ability to see colors, and that little doohickey became your only way of identifying things by color, you would know something was missing. And you would not think it was unimportant, even though you would still be able to have the conversations. Think of the times you would use it if you were alone. If you point it at a sunset, you would learn which areas of the sky are red, orange, yellow, and still blue. Point it at a painting or photograph of a field of flowers, and learn which are which colors. Would you bother?

And would you wish you could see colors again?

If people never had color vision, there woods be no concept of, or word for, color. And if we were all given this device, we would never use it. It would be meaningless. We would have no idea what its taps were for. Even if it was given to us by aliens who tried to explain it, it would be meaningless. We never would have been, and would not now start choosing paint by color. We wouldn't even have vans of specific colors. As we would have been up until then, we would be concerned with how it held up to the weather, to having our children's crayons washed off of it, and whatever other kinds of wear and tear. But there would be no aesthetics involved.

Notice that in loosing all my qualia, I did not loose consciousness. You should find that odd, if being conscious is having qualia. — Banno

People who go blind or deaf are still conscious.

I'll adopt everyone else's views on consciousness for the moment, and say that an entity that had no capacity for qualia would not be conscious. Do you think a machine that can differentiate frequencies in the range of the spectrum that we call visible light knows what red is? Do you think it knows what vision is? Do you think it's conscious? Do you think if we gave ChatGPT a device that can differentiate these frequencies it would experience read the way you do?

Being conscious is not possessing a certain metaphysical item, a quale. — Banno

This is correct.

Being consciousness is being a creature that lives, reacts, expresses, interacts, and speaks in certain ways. — Banno

Much of that can be explained by the physical things and events that make us up. But some aspects of some of those things would be different without consciousness. For example, there would be no conversations about color if we did not subjectively experience the physical events of photons hitting retina, voltage gates opening, ions flooding neurons, electrical signal moving through optic nerve, etc. That is, if we did not see colors.

And that embeddedness is what is in danger of being lost by the simplistic expedient of treating consciousness as a thing. — Banno

Consciousness it's not a thing. It is subjective experience.

I think if someone was going to strip away your qualia...
— Patterner
Oddly irrelevant. — Banno

Tell me you would not object to living with no color.

Let's take it away, and hook up an electronic eye that can differentiate wavelengths, and tap your skin in certain patterns to indicate to you what color you used to see. Go to the paint store, and you'll be able to have the same conversations. *tap tap tap* "Three taps. That's sky blue. But I'm looking for royal blue." Scan another can. *tap tap taaaaaaap* "There it is! I love royal blue."

Your conversations with the store clerk and your spouse will be exactly the same as they would have been when you could see color. It's all irrelevant.

It remains for advocates of qualia to explain what qualia add to the conversation that is not already found in our talk of sensations, colours, odours and sounds. — Banno

Those things are qualia. The physical is the body's interactions with the environment, which causes various electrical signals to go from various parts of our exterior to our brain, where they are compared with stored information from previous exposures, etc. Talk about that all you want, and it will never hint at sensations, colours, odours and sounds.

My slant is more like: The demand may or not make sense; all we can say is that, as of now, we don't know how to think about it; our conceptual scheme creates a roadblock that might prove decisive, but we can't say. — J

You are certainly correct. However, if I'm putting thought into this puzzle, I'm not going to focus it in a direction that doesn't make sense. I don't think I can't possibly be wrong about consciousness being fundamental, or physicalism being impossible. Maybe a third alternative is the actual answer. If someone has evidence for anything, I'd love to see it. But they don't. Neither do I.

I'm underlining the reasons for positing this kind of consciousness (call it Ur-consciousness) because I want to see if there are any other, independent reasons for thinking the thesis might be true. I myself don't see any, but tell me what you think: Is there any evidence for Ur-con? Is there a physical theory that can include it? What would be our research program, to find out if Ur-con did or did not exist? Is it, in short, the result of a transcendental argument alone? Something like the cosmological constant used to be? (And there's a lesson there, because the CC now has new conceptual arguments to back it up, so the transcendental arguers were right all along!) — J

I can't see a way to validate any hypothesis, or rule out any. Nobody has come up with a way. All scenarios play out the same. We can't study, or even detect, consciousness with our sciences, so we can't see it come into being. We know it exists, because it's us. But we can't

Is there a physical theory that can include it? Not a physical-only theory. We're physical beings, and we're conscious. One way or another, it happens together.

The question I'd want to reflect on is, Are we being too parsimonious in our description of the "lower levels"? Must it be a matter of properties, exclusively? On the analogy with liquidity, then yes, it must be. But what about the analogy of the football game? What is the "property" which, added to the properties of the players and the field, creates the game? Two answers spring to mind: It's the intentions of the players; or, It's the rules that humans have put in place. I'm not sure which of these is right, but they both have the feature of bringing in something from an entirely different category of being, something that really can't be considered a lower-level property. Food for thought, perhaps. — J

Whether it's the intentions of the players or the rules that humans have put in place, football would not exist without consciousness. Football's lower level is consciousness, but we don't know what all of consciousness' lower levels are yet.

Sure, all that. But how do qualia help here? I think that they are a red herring...

And I think I've made a good fist of showing that they are not well understood. — Banno

I think if someone was going to strip away your qualia, you would object. Probably strenuously. You are going to the paint store for some specific color, or deliberating once you get there. I'm sure there's a color that is best, on the whole, for vision. Is every wall, ceiling, and floor in your home is that color? Sunsets and the Grand Canyon serve absolutely no purpose for humans. still, people go crazy for them.

Qualia are absolutely not well understood. I do not think trying to understand them is a red herring. But, to each their own. if the fact that you and I can look at objects of various colors and agree on which is red, which is blue, and which is green is all that is important to you, that's perfectly fine.

What I mean is, why is the form it's in not the form that it can most easily process and act upon?
— Patterner

As the brain receives a sensory signal, it is just a signal, presumably without any qualitative content. The brain has to do the work so that the signal can be interpreted by (the conscious subset of) itself as qualitative.

The key insight is that the sensory manifold we experience is not accidental or epiphenomenal. It is a highly efficient way of organizing information that would otherwise overwhelm the nervous system. — hypericin

I guess I'm wondering about the timeline. Were the brain's ability to do the work so that the conscious subset could interpret the signals and the conscious subset always both present? Or came into being at the same time?

If not, which came first? If the ability to do the work came first, then why was it doing that? If the conscious subset came first, then what did it do before there was an interpretable signal for it?

I want to understand consciousness. Science has allowed us to come to know our reality to a degree that allows us to measure both the fantastically huge and fantastically small to degrees that are as fantastic, to understand the things and forces at work father away than we can comprehend outside of mathematics, and create wonders. We can communicate all of this information to others in various ways, giving them the ability to measure, understand, and creater the same things. And all this knowledge grows every day.

And yet, keeping with the paint store for an example, we have no idea how we experience redness. We know about photons of certain wavelengths, the retina, cones, optic nerve, neurons in the brain, and more other things than I can guess. But we have no idea why all of that physical activity is accompanied by our experience of redness. No idea how to even beginning looking for the answer.

We can give someone who can see all colors but red all the information that can ever be given, and they will not know what red looks like. No description or data will help.

To me, consciousness is the most fascination topic of all, and qualia is a big part of it.

we cannot know that what you experience as red is the same as what I experience as red
— Patterner
...and this makes no difference. The qual - the private experiences - do not have a place at the paint shop. — Banno

It makes no difference in the paint shop. If that is your only concern, then you're good.

Am I right that the major reason for proposing this ontology is to avoid needing to have consciousness emerge, or arise, or be caused by something physical? — J

The reason is more that it doesn't make sense to think that consciousness can emerge, or arise, or be caused by something physical, so we need another explanation.

I'm open to hearing how consciousness does emerge from purely physical things. But people like Greene, Hoffman, Crick, and Eagleman say they don't have any clue as to how that can be.

If there is a reason for the emergence of consciousness, then wouldn't that mean it was intended?
— Patterner

Not sure I follow that. Intended by whom? I'm using "reason" here in the sense of "What's the reason the seasons change?" But if that's confusing, we could, if you like, reserve the term "reason" for situations involving rationality and intention, and instead speak here of causes. So: "If this picture of consciousness as emergent turns out to be the case, we will understand the causes of its emergence very well." Is that less objectionable? (And mind you, neither of us is necessarily buying the "if" part. We're looking into what the hypothesis would entail.) — J

I gotcha. And yes, that's fine. But wouldn't that have to mean there are lower level properties? How do we understand liquidity? How do we understand that solid H2O floats in liquid H2O? That plants thrive in sunlight? Where the bulk of trees comes from?

We know the micro properties that are responsible for the structures the next level up; the properties of those structures that are responsible for the structures the next level up; etc.

If we understand the causes of the emergence of consciousness very well, can it be possible that it will not involve the properties of the lower levels?

But people do experience colours. The problem is that some folk want now to talk about ineffable private experiences of colour, instead of yellow. — Banno

IYou specifically said "...an illusion of language and introspection" and "What is spoken of as "the sensation of red" is not a thing at all, so much as the illusion of a thing.". But fine, let's not talk of illusion.

It is an objective fact that we see colors. It is a subjective experience in that we cannot quantify the experience, or transfer the knowledge of it to someone else. We can't tell a blind person what sight it, much less color. We can't tell someone with complete color blindness what color is. We can't tell someone with deuteranopia or protanopia what red or green are, even though they see other colors just fine. Color is not objective.

Which is why we say we cannot know that what you experience as red is the same as what I experience as red. We both experience whatever it is we each experience consistently, so we agree on what things are red. (For the most part, anyway.) But we have no way of objectively demonstrating that we experience it the same way. I would bet we do, but we'll never know.

Perhaps that “something left over” is an illusion of language and introspection, and since all evidence comes from publicly observable criteria, no extra metaphysical object is needed. — Banno

Not sure how you mean this. If people did not experience colors, why would they begin referring to the colors of things in order to distinguish between them when communicating? How would that have been successful if people were not actually experiencing color?

Also, how are we imagining an experience that we're not actually having? How is it that we can consistently identify things? How would I be able to identify spheres off different colors, you rearrange them while my eyes are closed, and I correctly identify them by color when I open my eyes again? And you and I agree on which color they all are?

Can we start referring to things by a characteristic that nobody has ever mentioned, and bring that new characteristic into illusory existence, which people will soon be claiming they are experiencing?

But either way, you are now a long way from that private, ineffable sensation. — Banno

If it was not private, if it was quantifiable and able to be studied, the way the molecules and noses are, we would know whether or not your experience of red and my experience of read was the same thing.

We got us a homunculus? Somewhere inside the feedback loops of neurons there's a tiny “observer” that experiences redness and smells coffee? — Banno

I don't suspect that. I suspect the entire system (each of us) experiences its own existence in a way that cannot be studied, or even detected, from the outside, and cannot be explained by physics.

Is your point that there is a difference between the physics and the smell? But the aroma is not the qualia. — Banno

The aroma is the qualia, whether it's the smell of coffee, the color red, the taste of feta cheese, the feeling of pain, or whatever. Yes, there is a difference between the physics and any qualia. To largely quote what I just said in another thread, we can mess with subjective experience by affecting voltage gated calcium channels, serotonin reuptake proteins, and any number of other parts of neurons. But that doesn't even begin to address how those physical things don't only release ions when photons of one particular range of wavelengths hit the retina, but experience redness, and don't only act on themselves in feedback loops, but are aware of their own existence. The physics can explain how we differentiate molecules that enter our nose, how they trigger stored information regarding prior contact with molecules of the same chemical structure, and lead to a response based on experiences that took place during past exposures. But those things don't explain the accompanying subjective experiences, and could take place without them.

Molecules of the liquid floating through the air is not a private thing.

My subjective experience of it is, and it might be very different from yours. We might have preferences that are different to the point that one of us hates it and the other loves it. That's not accounted for by the physical events of the molecules landing on the mucus of the olfactory epithelium inside the nose, traveling through the mucus until they reach the olfactory receptor cells, binding to the olfactory receptor cells, which send electrical signals to the region of the brain known as the glomerulus, which sends the signals to yet other parts of the brain for identification.

I don't think preference or aroma are about anything but qualia. And why does the coffee need to be pulverized?

The discourse functions without qualia, on the basis that what we smell is the smell of coffee, regardless of whether it is the very same for each of us or not. — Banno

But what is the conversation about? What can we say about coffee that doesn't involve qualia?

This is perhaps important. Consistent with your idea that consciousness is a sort of irreducible natural kind, or property, we can view it as creating mental abilities of various sorts. What's "created" is not consciousness (it's there all along) but the mental ability. My concern about this picture is that it sounds like a shell game. We've substituted "mental ability" for "consciousness" in its traditional usages, and are now asserting the same mysterious things about mental abilities that were formally asserted about consciousness. How are they created? What are they? How do we know what has them? etc. — J

No, this isn't what I mean. I think consciousness and mental are not at all the same thing. Not even related. Thinking is just physical. I quote this frequently, and here I go again. From Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.

Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•​A sensor that responds to its environment
•​A doer that acts upon its environment — Ogas and Gaddam

The first mind they talk about is that if the archaea. Archaea "is an example of a molecule mind, the first stage of thinking on our journey. All the thinking elements in molecule minds consist of individually identifiable molecules."

The simplicity of this example stretches the definition of 'thinking' and 'mind' past what probably anyone is comfortable with. But it's the beginning. Going up the evolutionary ladder - neuron minds, module minds, super minds - just means adding more physical things. What else can be added, after all? Physical things that take in sensory input, store information, access information, initiate responses...

I think consciousness is always present, always giving the entity in question, whether a particle, person, or whatever else, subjective experience of itself. We subjectively experience the physical sensory input processes of a range of the electromagnetic spectrum as vision with colors and shapes. We subjectively experience the physical system that stores information as memory. You get the idea.

But consciousness does not create those things. Rather, it is the property by which we subjectively experience them. And things without any mental abilities still have subjective experiences. But they don't have thoughts or memories about the experiences.

yet one day, for no reason whatsoever . . .
— Patterner

Well, that couldn't be true. — J

It most certainly couldn't.

If this picture of consciousness as emergent turns out to be the case, we will understand the reasons for its emergence very well. I don't think anyone is suggesting that consciousness is random or fluky. — J

If there is a reason for the emergence of consciousness, then wouldn't that mean it was intended? If it's emergent, isn't it either blind chance or not blind chance?

Think division of responsibility. Different parts of the brain are responsible for different functions. When receiving information from the world, one part of the brain translates that information into a form that can be easily processed and acted upon. Then the executive, the conscious part, uses that translated information to learn and to act. — hypericin

What I mean is, why is the form it's in not the form that it can most easily process and act upon? I've never asked this question of my own view, but certainly should.

Some versions of property dualism (I think including yours) go on to say that these are actual objective properties which can be discovered using 3rd person inquiry. — J

I claim consciousness is an objective fact. But it's not something that has physical properties, so cannot be discovered or studied with our physical sciences. 3rd person inquiry and introspection are the most obvious tools we have to work with. They are, of course, notoriously problematic.

It’s sheer speculation at this point. But it’s no more unwarranted than vague references to “emergent properties.” — J

Yes to both.

I think Chalmers is way off track when he says that a proton has “a degree” of consciousness. — J

I agree. I don't think there's any such thing as "a degree"of consciousness, or different levels of consciousness, higher consciousness, etc. I think consciousness is consciousness. What's different is the thing that is conscious. The subjective experience of a photon is extremely different from the subjective experience of a human.

Might it be proto-conscious, in your sense of having a property that, when scaled up, can result in consciousness? — J

I don't think so. I don't think anything results in consciousness. It's always there. We just subjectively experience "scaled up" mental abilities. A photon has none, of course. But our mental abilities are scaled up above those of anything we are aware of that has any mental abilities at all.

Likewise with “experiences.” We can insist on a reform of how to use that word, so that all material entities can now have them, but that’s arbitrary. If the word is used at all, it refers to events that can be perceived “from the inside,” and the constituents of your rock can’t do this. There are indeed “instantaneous, memory-less moments” involving the rock-particles, but the particles aren’t experiencing them. Or putting it differently: If you want to reform “experience” to include what particles can do, you need to explain what part of the concept of “experience” is being carried over, such that it can justify continuing to use the term. — J

It is a difficulty thing to try to imagine what part is being "carried over" such that it can be said that a particle has it. However, I think it's what is needed. It has to be there from the beginning. The alternative is that purely physical structures evolve without the presence of consciousness, without anything directing the evolution in order to bring about consciousness, yet one day, for no reason whatsoever, find themselves in configurations that gives rise to consciousness. I mean, holy cow! Didn't see that coming!!


Regarding "the same thing", is it possible to think of consciousness as another sense? There's no confusion or ambiguity with the idea of one person seeing me and another person hearing me. Consciousness happens to be a sense that only works on the self. Maybe? I don't know. I just thought of it right now. Heh

am I wrong in thinking that the content of my thought about Ann caused the next thought? — J

The alternative would seem to be that, because of the laws of physics, the physical events progress from one arrangement to the next - potassium ions gathering in neuron X, calcium ions gathering in neuron Y, dopamine building in this synapse, GABA being moved back into the axon terminal of that neuron - in the only way they can, but the meaning of a progression of ideas about Anna that makes sense to us is only coincidental.

I'm not sure I understand. It seems like you're saying the brain understands the information well enough to convert it to a different format? If it understands the information in the first place, why does it need to convert it? I can understand a computer AI understanding the code, but presenting it in a form we can efficiently process and act upon. But why does the brain present what it already understands to itself in a different form?

Or am I misunderstanding?

If qualia are private, then how is it that you and these others agree about them? How do you know that, when you use the term "qualia", you are all talking about the same thing?
— Banno

We don't know, and can never know, that the content of our qualia agree. What most of us do agree is that there is something that it is like to see an apple and smell ammonia. — hypericin

And that is what needs explanation. It doesn't even matter whether or not what it is like for me to see red is the same as what it is like for you to see red. we need to know why there's something it is like for anybody to see red, as opposed to nothing taking place other than a massively complex bunch of particles bouncing around, with some moving one way because photons of one range of wavelengths hit the retina, and some moving another way because photons of another range of wavelengths hit the retina.

A faithful simulation of the human brain will, somewhere in its workings, faithfully process all the state associated with a full qualitative experience.
-hypericin

Not if dualism is true. It would be like perfectly simulating a physical radio and expecting it to play music. It just wouldn't because you're missing something that is more than the physical radio, and the simulated radio would have zero access to real radio waves. — noAxioms

I don't know which types of dualism would agree, but the property dualism I have in mind, with consciousness a fundamental property, does not.

this is the closest I've come here.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15877/property-dualism/p1

But it's kind of sloppy in ways. Working on getting my thoughts down better.

Thank you.

Right, simply saying "Subjectivity is neurochemical" is like saying "Consciousness is an emergent property" or "The brain is the seat of the mind." It gives the illusion of understanding something but no actual content. — J

Right. and, even though I suspect consciousness is something very different than what you think it is, it needs to be explained either way. It can't just be "Put enough physical stuff together, and it just happens."

Of course it's the brain. Nobody's questioning that. But that's where, not how. We know that wings make an airplane fly. When we ask how, simply repeating "the wings do it" isn't an answer. Certainly, we can mess with subjective experience by affecting voltage gated calcium channels, serotonin reuptake proteins, and any number of other parts of neurons. But that doesn't even begin to address how those physical things don't only release ions when photons of one particular range of wavelengths hit the retina, but experience redness, and don't only act on themselves in feedback loops, but are aware of their own existence.

Secondly, without all knowledge as already given in the active mind via noesis (direct non sensible intuition), our passive minds would be incapable of generating any thought by themselves since they only have the POTENTIAL for thought. — Sirius

Can you tell me anything about the 'passive mind'? I don't know what you mean by that.

But even this analogy falls short, since subjectivity is way more different from the brain than a football game is from its constituent physical parts. — J

That's Such an amazingly important thing. No analogy works. Of course, no one is perfect, and people always point out the problems with an analogy. The point is what is common, not to find what is different. but when trying to find an analogy for anything dealing with consciousness the differences are hard to get past.

Yes we don't have a good understanding yet of how the brain makes subjective experiences.
--------------------
We don't yet understand how the brain creates subjective experiences like "redness". — Mijin

We don't have a hint of understanding how the brain makes subjective experiences. Which means we don't know that it does. You cannot claim to know that X causes Y if you don't have the slightest idea how X causes Y. And that is why what you are talking about is not empirical verification that this is what's happening. As you say, we know where. Where isn't how.

Secondly, I just said that my position is that thoughts and neural firings are two descriptions of the same phenomenon — Mijin

How does that work?

You may as well be asking me whether ball causes sphere or does sphere cause ball? They're two descriptions of the same thing. — Mijin

You are trying to make an analogy between two words for the same physical thing, and two things of completely different nature, one physical and one not.

First of all, that wording half implies that we can only detect the physical. I do admit that you don't explicitly deny the ability to detect anything non-physical. — noAxioms

I am glad you admit that, because I do not deny the ability to detect anything non-physical. Consciousness is non-physical, yet we detect it. As I said, I think 'detect' is too week a word for this, but it will do.


I'm reversing the order of your next two paragraphs. I don't think it changes your meaning in any way, and I'm not intending to do anything like that. It's just that putting them in this order seems a more natural progression for my point.

Secondly, the point I keep making: This fundamental nature of consciousness cannot be undetectable. It may itself be non-physical, but it has to cause physical effects, because you are physically responding to it. That's the part that's self-inconsistent with your suggestion. — noAxioms

I don't know how I am being inconsistent when I agree with everything you just said. And I have never said otherwise.

I would like to draw attention to what you just said about consciousness not being physical, which I have been saying for several weeks in conversations with you and others.

Your argument instead hinges on the lack of explanation. Physicalism might indeed not have an full explanation, but neither does your alternative, which lacks even the beginnings of one. So positing something undetectable isn't an improvement. — noAxioms

It isn't merely the lack of a physicalist explanation. It's the lack of any hint of what a physicalist explanation might look like. The reason for that is because it is trying to build something non-physical out of physical components. That's worse than trying to build a wooden house out of water, because at least wood and water are physical things made out of the same primary particles. if I told you I saw somebody pour a bunch of water on the ground, and suddenly there was a house, you would be skeptical. If you saw it happen yourself, you would still think somebody was pulling a fast one. But building something non-physical out of physical components is unquestionably the answer, despite the fact that many brilliant people have been failing to even get a vague idea of how it might work?

No, there is no evidence for what I'm suggesting. But at least I'm positing something from which this non-physical phenomenon can be built. A fundamental property. We don't know whatmass is. We don't know what charge is. We only know what those things do, and the proof is all around us. We don't know what dark matter is, and cannot detect it in any way. But we assume it exists because we can see what it does. The evidence is all around us. I'm suggesting another fundamental property. We don't know what consciousness is, but we know it exists because we feel what it does. The proof is ourselves.

Just to understand the terminology, shape and color are not Qualities? Blue and red are different qualities of color, and square in circle are different qualities of shape?

Alright, since you've been using 'consciousness', are you saying that you cannot detect your own consciousness? That it has no physical effect?
Funny that you're straight up refused to answer a question asked so many times now. — noAxioms

Well, twice, anyway. and I haven't answered it because I've been trying to make you understand what I actually said. But first I'll answer, and then I'll try to make you understand.

Yes, I detect my own consciousness. Although 'detect' is too weak a word for this. I am my consciousness. I would give up quite a few body parts before I would give up consciousness. I am still me without an arm, or a leg, or both, or even all of my arms and legs. But, at some point, I'm sure I would wish I no longer had subjective experience. Wayfarer and I recently posted these two quotes:

the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. — Routledge Intro to Phenomenology

Everything begins with consciousness, and nothing is worth anything except through it. — Albert Camus

What I said is:
If what we can detect cannot explain something, then we should consider the possibility that there is something we can't detect.

To try to clarify, let me try it this way:
If what we can detect (the physical) cannot explain something (consciousness), then we should consider the possibility that there is something we can't detect (the fundamental nature of consciousness).

But yes, they are different facets of the same thing; this is trivially demonstrable from the fact that physical changes to our brain have a corresponding effect on our conscious experience (e.g. taking an opioid and the effect it has on dopamine receptors and what that feels like). — Mijin

Noting correlation is not the same as explaining how one causes the other. There is nothing about the physical events that suggests subjective experience, and there is no wild guess of an explanation. Dopamine binds to the dopamine receptor. The dopamine receptor is coupled with a G-protein. The binding changes the shape of the dopamine receptor, which activates the G-protein. activating the G-protein stimulates or inhibits enzymes, depending on what kind of receptor cell we're dealing with. But the functioning of ion channels is key. So a channel mighty open, and sodium ions flow in.

Where do you suspect the subjective experience shows up?

Neuron firings, changes to action potentials, release of chemicals, other bodily activities. Of course, none of these measures apply to what we consider thought processes. But that would require knowing exactly how thoughts are produced in a brain. — Relativist

I don't know how alone I am in this, but I think they do apply to thoughts. I think thinking is a physical process. But consciousness is things like the experience of seeing red and tasting sugar, as well as those physical processes being aware of their own existence. The descriptions of the physical events beginning with photons hitting retina and ending with the discrimination of electromagnetic frequencies can certainly be quantified in various ways. But they don't suggest the existence of consciousness.

In terms of ontology, things have properties, processes do not have properties. — Relativist

Still, we can measure them. Flying is a process. How far did the plane fly? In which direction? How much fuel did it user? How long did it take?

DNA replication is a process. How many base pairs were copied? How many ATP molecules were needed for energy? How long did it take?

If consciousness is a physical process, what are the answers to these kinds of questions?

A physicalist would say that all mental properties are physical properties. — noAxioms

Do you equate mental and consciousness?

Or maybe I didn't say it clearly. I'm saying we can detect the physical.
— Patterner
Are you saying you can't detect the mental? That seems odd for somebody pushing it as a separate fundamental thing. — noAxioms

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying we can detect the physical.

Because consciousness is not physical, meaning has no physical properties...
Of course it has physical properties. It is the cause of physical effects. If it couldn't do that, you would not be going on about it. It therefore very much can be detected by our science. How do you not see that? — noAxioms

Can you tell me what the physical properties of consciousness are? Are they like the physical properties of particles; things like mass, charge, or spin? Are they like the physical properties of objects; things like length, weight, or hardness? Are they like the physical properties of processes; things like speed, duration, or distance? Can we measure how much energy is required to taste sweetness or see red?

Yet, in ordinary language, if someone asks you, "Do you believe the TV is on?" you'll answer yes. — J

I might respond, "No. The TV is on." I've said that kind of thing at times.

You might also point out that it's a rather strange question: "Why would I not believe it? It's on; see for yourself!" This highlights one of the uses of "believe". We tend to emphasize believing something when there could be doubt. — J

Right. I think we should not. Where does it end? I believe I have ten fingers and toes. I believe my name is Eric. I understand the idea that I can't very well not believe something that I know is factual. But is not not believing it the same as belief? I don't, uh, believe it is.

Is there some mental event that occurs while I watch TV, that's the equivalent of giving credence to the existence of the TV? This seems far-fetched. — J

I agree it's far-fetched.

More likely is the opposite case, when we're watching, say, a pack of elves. The mental event "I don't believe this" is probably present, wouldn't you say? Or least "I don't know whether to believe this or not." — J

How about, "That's not real."? The flip-side of the above. Knowing something is not factual is not the same as not believing it.

There's a fantasy series called The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. He had to consciously not believe something he knew could not be factual, even though he was living it.