Apart from them there is vast nothingness. — prothero

Interesting phrase. Can nothingness be vast?

Could be. Unless they have definitively figured out all about consciousness, no longer debating it the way we do, and would know for sure.

↪RogueAI So anyway, the claim now from you is, if physicalism is true then knowing everything about the physical arrangement of the book should allow you to understand the meaning of the book, even if you don't understand the language it was written in.

I just don't think that follows.

I mean, let's take LLMs as an example. They're a good example because they're explicitly physical. They are implemented 100% in the physical world - the computer scientists who invented them didn't learn how to imbue them with souls or anything, they work on the same physical principles as any normal computer.

Now if you give one of these LLMs a bunch of text in a language they're trained on, they can summarise it for you pretty well.

And if you give them a bunch of text on a language they haven't been trained on, they can't.

So we have a fully physical system which can, loosely speaking, "understand" some stuff and not "understand" other stuff, despite having the same access to the visual characters of each text. So... no I don't think it holds that, if physicalism is true, a person should be able to understand text he hasn't been trained to understand.

Obviously LLMs aren't the same as human beings and a summary from the LLM isn't the same as human understanding. BUT the ability to summarise and paraphrase a text is a human test for understanding, so I think the comparison is honestly robust enough. — flannel jesus

Do you think LLMs understand text? I don't think they have the slightest understanding that the marks on paper, or the binary code that the marks on paper are converted to, mean other things. I don't think they understand what meaning is, even when they are programmed to say they are. I think the binary code reacts in different ways to different binary code that is input, entirely determined by how they are programmed. I think it's very complex dominos.

For any unit to be conscious as a unit, it must be a unit processing energy
— Ulthien (should be Patterner)

..but exactly this "lapsus" made me join here, as it stands true for the binding of the info to sentiency: only the EM quantum field can accomplish this thansposition :) — Ulthien

But I meant to say:

For any unit to be conscious as a unit, it must be a unit processing information.

A ping-pong ball is not a unit in regards to consciousness. It's just a physical arrangement of particles.

A Rube Goldberg Machine is not a unit in regards to consciousness. It's just a bunch of physical arrangements of particles knocking into each other. There is no information anywhere in the system. No part of it means anything.

Dominos set up too reveal whether or not a given number is prime is not a unit in regards to consciousness. There is no information being processed. Dominos are falling in a way that demonstrates something mathematical. But because they were specifically arranged to do that, not because they mean that.

When protein is synthesized, information is processed. The structure of DNA is encoded information. The codons mean amino acids, and the order of the codons means proteins. Proteins are literally assembled. They are stuck together, molecule by molecule, in the specified order. This is the beginning of consciousness of more than individual particles.

For any unit to be conscious as a unit, it must be a unit processing energy. Arrangements of particles must mean something other than the arrangements of particles that they are, and they must be processing that information. So DNA, the beginning of life, is also the beginning of groups of particles that are conscious as a unit.
— Patterner

close, but no cigar. — Ulthien

Argh! Reading your quote of me, I see a mistake. I don't know how I made such an obvious mistake, but "energy" should be "information".

no I have yours and a bunch of other posts to read. Welcome aboard!

Philosophers? Among philosophers everything is always a matter of debate. — T Clark

I disagree.








:joke:

↪Patterner are you the guy who listened to the Annika Harris audio thing with me? — flannel jesus

Yep.

↪SophistiCat I think he wants debates within panpsychism. Which is valid. "If we start with the assumption that pansychism is true, where does that lead us?" I think that's fair. I'm not a panpsychist myself but I think that kind of approach is worth having. It's an exploration of an idea. — flannel jesus

Thank you. It seems some would forbid such discussions.

When your physical body is no longer existent, your mind will also evaporate into thin air. — Corvus

Your mind will be gone pretty much the moment you die.

What do you have in mind by "consciouness being fundamental doesn't imply everything being conscious"? What is the alternative?
— Patterner

Fundamental =/= Omnipresent — Dawnstorm

I forgot this part when I replied. Here's what I'm thinking...

1) Consciousness is fundamental, not emergent from the physical.*

2) Therefore, something non-physical is also at work.

3) There's no reason to think matter everywhere in the universe that is arranged like us would not have the same subjective experience that we have.

4) The non-physical aspect of reality that gives us our subjective experience is doing the same everywhere in the universe.

if that's correct, I think it would have an effect everywhere. As opposed to it being everywhere, but being inactive unless certain conditions are present.


*I'll add this quote to these. From Donald Hoffman's The Case Against Reality Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, when he was talking to Francis Crick:

“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

We don't have a clue as to how consciousness could emerge from the physical. It's like asking how we could build a house out of liquid water. Worse, in fact, because at least houses and water are both physical things.

Also, I think the term "everything" is problematic in the sense that what appears to us as a unit may not be conscious — Dawnstorm

Yes, it may be a unit only in our eyes. A rock, a stop sign, a cruise ship, a cloud, anything. those are not units in the way I mean, because there is no information processing taking place anywhere. Nevertheless, every particle that makes them up is experiencing. A particle is not experiencing thinking, intelligence, or anything mental. its existence, and therefore what it experiences, is purely physical.

But without body, our consciousness evaporates into nothing. Our brain falls asleep every night, and when it does, the whole world of ours disappears into nothing too until bodies waking up in the morning. Bodies keep on living without conscious minds, but no conscious mind can exist without the living body which it could be emerged from. — Corvus

I agree. Information processing - thinking - is a physical thing. I just posted this on response to :

The physical is things like photons* hitting retina, being converted into electrical signals that go to the brain, trigger a storage mechanism containing a similar pattern of photons* hitting the retina at some point in the past during which the body sustained damage, triggering ..., on and on, and the body moves a certain way that avoids taking damage again.

Is that a description of a mental event? — Patterner

I believe that is a description of a mental event. Photons, vibrations in the air, etc., interact with our sensory apparatus. it is converted into another form - my electric signals. These signals represent the original. That's meaning. Information. That information is processed in the brain (for things that have a brain), and action results. That is thinking. 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. — Ogas & Gaddam

But that is not consciousness. Thinking is a physical process. Thinking can be a more complex physical process than most other physical processes (although not necessarily), but that's what it is.

Consciousness is subjective experience. The subjective experience of this particular kind of physical process is what has usually been considered consciousness. I disagree. I think consciousness is the subjective experience of anything, and this just happens to be what we humans subjectively experience.

For any unit to be conscious as a unit, it must be a unit processing energy. Arrangements of particles must mean something other than the arrangements of particles that they are, and they must be processing that information. So DNA, the beginning of life, is also the beginning of groups of particles that are conscious as a unit.
— Patterner

It now seems like you're not actually saying "everything" is conscious. That's perfectly fine, since consciouness being fundamental doesn't imply everything being conscious. It just feels... different from what I read you saying before (partly due to the rock example, no doubt). — Dawnstorm

That's not what I mean. The key is that I don't think consciousness and thinking/mental activity are related. Human consciousness is the experience of thinking/mental activity. Things that don't have thinking/mental activity, obviously, cannot experience it. But they experienced what they are.

What do you have in mind by "consciouness being fundamental doesn't imply everything being conscious"? What is the alternative?

There may be "things" that don't appear to me as a unit that are conscious. They would be units in themselves, but not for me. — Dawnstorm

Yes. My criteria for "unit" is something that process information. I'm sure there is a lot more information processing going on than I recognized.

going to read the rest of your post a couple more times try to get a better handle on your idea.

But our consciousness is about far more than just our physical bodies.
— Patterner

But without body, our consciousness evaporates into nothing. Our brain falls asleep every night, and when it does, the whole world of ours disappears into nothing too until bodies waking up in the morning. Bodies keep on living without conscious minds, but no conscious mind can exist without the living body which it could be emerged from. — Corvus

I agree. The mind turns off at times, like deep sleep or general anesthesia.

For my philosophical purposes, I further define Consciousness as human subjective experience. That's the only type of awareness we forum posters have experienced first hand. I am skeptical that "everything", including atoms, consciously experience their existence. — Gnomon

My position is that the phrase "consciously experience" is like "visually see". But my guess is you don't mean it that way. I would guess you mean something like knowingly, intellectually, or mindfully experience. Which, of course, humans do. But because we have mental abilities to be conscious of, not because those abilities are consciousness.

I've read various accounts of Maxwell's demon. I don't understand why things I see as problems are not. From The Demon in the Machine, by Paul Davies:

Maxwell assumed that the demon and the shutter are perfectly functioning devices with no friction or need for a power source. This is admittedly an idealization, but there is no known principle preventing an arbitrarily close approach to such mechanical perfection. Remember, friction is a macroscopic property where ordered motion, e.g. a ball rolling along the floor, is converted to disordered motion – heat – in which the ball’s energy is dissipated among trillions of tiny particles. But on a molecular scale, all is tiny. Friction doesn’t exist. — Paul Davies

How can you open and close the shutter without using energy?

Aside from that, the molecules are bouncing around the box, being sorted into one side or the other. But they're not going to continue bouncing around at the same speed forever, are they? Demon will be sorting slower and slower molecules?

So, I ask rhetorically for the nth time, why can't the mental be physical? Why can't the physical be mental? — Manuel

The physical is things like photons* hitting retina, being converted into electrical signals that go to the brain, trigger a storage mechanism containing a similar pattern of photons* hitting the retina at some point in the past during which the body sustained damage, triggering ..., on and on, and the body moves a certain way that avoids taking damage again.

Is that a description of a mental event?

Is the universe intelligible to us other than through minds? Not that we know of. — Manuel

What would intelligibility without minds mean?



*My speech to text said futons. Futons hitting retina is contraindicated.

Basically, what would count as a rock's consciousness would be independent from human category-making. For example, a human breaks a rock. What now? Two consciousnesses where previously there was one? One consciousness as broken rock? Both? Is the world flow constantly splintering off and merging consciousnesses? Does really everything have a concsiousness (regardless of whether it's comprehensible as a unit to a human mind)? — Dawnstorm

I'm suggesting that nothing, not humans or anything else "has a consciousness". Said that way, consciousness is a thing. Rather, everything "is conscious". But yes, i'm saying everything is conscious. However, I've been very unclear shirt something. To get more into the unit idea, I don't really suspect a rock is a conscious unit. I know I've been using it as an example, but I guess to try to get the point across that consciousness isn't a mental thing. Rather, consciousness of people means consciousness of mental things. (And I could be wrong. I could be wrong about the entire thing, after all, so certainly about this. Maybe rocks are consciousness as a unity. But I doubt it.) To be a conscious unity, as opposed to just an object with trillions+ of individually conscious particles, Simple physical proximity isn't enough. A rock is only a unit to a human mind. It is not a unit to itself, or any of its particles. it's just a conglomerate of individual, individually conscious, particles.

For any unit to be conscious as a unit, it must be a unit processing energy. Arrangements of particles must mean something other than the arrangements of particles that they are, and they must be processing that information. So DNA, the beginning of life, is also the beginning of groups of particles that are conscious as a unit.

Quite long ago now, I've come up with a thought experience. Imagine you come across a butterfly sitting on a flower. To you there's a butterfly, a flower, stuff around that that's neiter... all that is intuitive and comprehensible. Now imagine an invisible globe, such that part of the butterfly and flower is in the globe, and part of it is outside of it. That is less intuitive, but due to maths we can imagine it. Now imagine the butterfly taking off and flying away. And now find some sort of mathmatics that allows to recalculate the entire universe such that whatever was within the imagined invisible globe stays a unit. I think that's impossible (from a human perspective), but if we imagine it possible, surely the result would be entirely incomprehensible. However, if the contents of the globe were conscious than there would be an experience that would make this cohere, however incomprehensible this would be to us. And yet it would be the very same world flow that contains our consciousnesses, too. — Dawnstorm

Sorry, I just don't understand your idea.

I'm not sure "subjective experience" works as a definition, mostly because this uproots what "experience" means: you sometimes express sympathy for "felt experience", then you say that a rock "experiences being a rock," but also that rock has no feelings. There's a muddle here that's nearly impossible to deal with if your intuition is foreign to the concept. — Dawnstorm

Legitimate criticism. I don't claim to have every answer or to have thought of every aspect. And I might not always word things clearly. I started this thread because I wanted help examining the topic. So I thank you for this.

Yes, I like "felt experience." Because when it involves some kind of things, it gives feeling. Sometimes feeling in the way we usually mean it. It's not just damage to my skin, it hurts. There's also emotional feeling, like what love feels like. Can I say there's a feeling of seeing blue? Some people say this or that brand of whiskey is smooth.

And I think it feels like something to be me. That feeling is a combination of all the other feelings of every type that I have.

So I think "feel" covers a lot of ground. And that's how I mean it for "felt experience." But I'm not married to it. "Subjective experience" works fine, and is more commonly accepted. Either way, everything experiences it's own existence. You experience many things, and kinds of things, that a rock does not. A rock experiences simple existence. The experience is not of much of anything. But you experience more sensory input, information processing, and feedback loops, all working together so that the unit can affect its environment, and its self, in order to ensure its continuation.

As far as what experience is for a rock, here are some quotes... In this article, Philip Goff writes:

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.

In this Ted Talk, Chalmers says:

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.

In Panpsychism in the West, Skrbina writes:

Minds of atoms may conceivably be, for example, a stream of instantaneous memory-less moments of experience.

I don't like Skrbina's use of "mind" in this way. I think there needs to be thinking to have a mind. Even if only the very beginnings of thinking, as described in 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 environmen — Ogas and Gaddam

I'll respond to more of your post.

How does "everything experiences" happen? A rock, a tree, a comatose person – what's the mechanism by which each of them "experiences" at all? — 180 Proof

I don't know the answer to what I think you are asking. I don't know that it could ever be known. After all, Brian Greene wrote, "I don’t know what mass is. I don’t know what electric charge is. What I do know is that mass produces and responds to a gravitational force, and electric charge produces and responds to an electromagnetic force. So while I can’t tell you what these features of particles are, I can tell you what these features do." If we don't know what those things are, which are in the purview of our sciences, and are measured with incredible precision, how much harder would it be to find this answer?

Also, if "the brain" doesn't produce "consciousness", as you say, Patterner, then what accounts for (e.g.) every amputee's phenomenon of phanthom pain? — 180 Proof

I don't know any detail about what is happening in the brain in these cases. I assume signals are being manufactured in the brain that mimic signals associated with pain that the brain received when the limb was there?

How then, do you define Consciousness? — Gnomon

Consciousness is subjective experience. That's all. Everything experiences it's own existence.

Very few posters on this forum are aware that physicists can now transform data (information) into energy and vice-versa. — Gnomon

I certainly was not. I'll look at your link. Sounds like an amazing topic.

Yes. :rofl: I am trying to respond to as many as I can at the end of a long day, working on 5 hours of sleep, and my alarm is going off again in 6 hours. You are correct. I misinterpreted you.

So you are looking at the univserse as a clockwork machine without the input of consciousness? — I like sushi

No, that is not my view. A clockwork machine would not have made skyscrapers, computers, nuclear bombs, or the Hoover Dam. It would not have written Shakespeare's works, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, The Bible, or Gilgamesh. It would not contain the works of Bach, The Beatles, or Steely Dan. I'm saying the universe is not a clockwork machine because consciousness is a part of it.

I am mostly of the mind that the very term consciousness is far too nebulous for current purposes. — I like sushi

I believe it is very basic. Nothing more than experience. I think many things usually thought of as consciousness are actually what is being experienced.

Is there some right answer to what you should identify with? — frank

I wouldn't think so. But I don't know what you're getting at.

But I'm not saying everything is consciousness. I'm saying everything is consciousness.
— Patterner

Typing mistake here, I assume? Or else you're getting super woo-woo. :smile: — J

Yes. Typo. :grin: I literally never use anything but my cell phone, usually swiping. I do try to proofread, but don't always do the best job.

You say that 'consciousness is fundamental'. In order to have a meaningful discussion it's also IMO important to clarify what we mean by 'consciousness' and provide a clear model for it. Do you think that, for instance, there is one fundamental consciousness or that there are many distinct consciousnesses? Do you think that any composite object has its own consciousness or only some composites have consciousness? — boundless

I'm not sure if you're asking two different questions, or if you are asking the same question in two different ways. My answer to the second, and possibly both, is that everything experiences. When I step on the nail, my foot experiences with the damage. But I, as a whole, also experience it. My foot takes the actual damage, but it is not what feels the pain. It is not what remembered a similar injury from years ago. It is not what worries about tetanus.

Sorry for the many questions, but I'd like to understand more your view. — boundless

No problem! I would also like to understand my view more. :grin:

Let's concede that, indeed, in some sense there is consciousness in both cases. My question is: is the 'consciousness' of a 'dead person' the same entity of the 'consciousness' of the 'living person' before she died? Is the 'consciouesness' of the 'anesthetized person' the very same entity of the 'consciousness' of the person when she was in a normal, waking state? Do the 'dead person' and 'anesthetized person' have a unitary, private experience? — boundless

There is a vast difference between the experience of a human whose brain/body is functioning typically and the same human brain/body that is either dead or anesthetized. The dead and anesthetized do not have mental processes, thinking, information processing, feedback loops... The anesthetized does have some of these things to some degree, because the autonomic systems process information and give feedback, and I suppose other things. But there are no mental processes, no thinking.

Notice that the 'privateness' of our experience, of our 'consciousness' is something to be addressed even in a panpsychist model. If all my constituents have their own 'consciousness', how does that explain the arising of 'my' consciousness, which seems separate from 'theirs'? — boundless

A human being is a unit. The leg is separate from the head, both are separate from the lungs, all are separate from the finger, etc. However, they are a unit. And that unit experiences as a unit. Various processes taking place in the brain are experienced as awareness and self-awareness. But stepping on a nail is also part of our consciousness.

Let me suggest that physical material, the physical universe (that we know, I’ll call it X) is an artificial construct. That the real world Y is immaterial, there are things, beings, space, time, things happen, just like in X, but there is no physical material. In Y there is an equivalent to material, because there are forms and there is extension in time and space. But this material is composed of ideas, concepts, axioms, consciousness and experiences. Things that we typically (here in X) see as mental states and processes. — Punshhh

Why is X constructed? If the equivalent of everything we know in X is already present in Y, then why do we need X?

I thank you for your words. I'm grateful you think I expressed my idea well.

But what if consciousness is not something static, like a property or essence, but a dynamic process that manifests itself only in systems that can actively interact with the world? — Astorre

That's certainly a possibility. I'm suggesting something different.

If consciousness is a process associated with dynamics (for example, perception, feedback or choice), then a stone whose existence is static and determined by external physical laws may not need consciousness. — Astorre

I am suggesting need had nothing to do with consciousness. It is present, in all things.

Even if we assume that he has some kind of "experience," it does not affect his being - unlike, say, a person or animal, where consciousness is associated with adaptive processes. — Astorre

I think the adaptive processes are what is being experienced. They would take place without any subjective experience, if reality did not have an experiential property.

I don't know what can be said about consciousness in regards to any hypothesis. They are either right or wrong. No?
— Patterner

Yes, but other hypotheses allow a basis for discussion about how you'd tell. — J

Unfortunately, that hasn't gotten us anywhere. Each hypothesis has its own camp. There's no way of proving anything. There are some widely diverse beliefs on what consciousness is just here at this site. Things look the same, no matter which possible solution we consider.

That aside, someone posted in another thread just the other day that they think consciousness is fundamental. There's not a reason in the world that person and I cannot discuss this idea.

Moreover, if everything is consciousness, we can't talk about what it might be like if some thing(s) were not. — J

But we would no longer have to try to figure out exactly where - on the evolutionary ladder or in the development of a human from conception - consciousness enters the picture. It's always there. It's just a matter of what is being experienced. What sensory input? What information processing? What feedback loops?

But what can now be said about it? It's either true or it isn't, and we don't have any way of evaluating which. Moreover, if everything is consciousness, we can't talk about what it might be like if some thing(s) were not. The position prevents us from being able to specify an alternative. — J

I don't know what can be said about consciousness in regards to any hypothesis. They are either right or wrong. No?

But I'm not saying everything is consciousness. I'm saying everything is consciousness.

There is something to be said for this, but hard to do so without entering realms you wish to steer clear of. — I like sushi

Aside from having the same old debate that everyone has had so many times, I'm not to much of anything.

In some sense we can frame those that say consciousness is emergent as being onboard with the idea of universal consciousness as the 'property' of consciousness exists by some means it is just that they cannot elaborate on the how or why to any significant extent. — I like sushi

Yes. many say it just happens, that it emerges from the physical,but don't suggest how. Eagleman and Hoffman say we don't even nlknow where to start. I'm suggesting there is a property that explains that it doesn't just happen, it doesn't emerge. It is there all along.

However, all things, living and non, experience.
— Patterner

This is going to be problematic in expressing your thoughts I feel. The word we have for this is 'exist' not 'experience'. I think if you expressed your thoughts more along the lines of reestablishing what we mean by 'exist' it would get your view point across more clearly. — I like sushi

Yes, it is problematic, because I'm suggesting something very different from what isbso commonly assumed. i'm saying that, without consciousness being there from the beginning, things would simply exist. And, even beings with our mental abilities would not be conscious. We would be automatons.

I think you may also need to address some problems of reductionism here when expressing these ideas. What I mean is we are all, as is everything, made up of parts and these parts are all 'experiencing'/'existing' items. The problem herein is that you say 'rock' or 'person,' but are we then to say that this or that molecule, wavefunction or organ is 'experiencing'/'existing' separate from or entangled with the experiencing of a mental subject? — I like sushi

Yes, that is, indeed, what I am saying. There is no conflict between the molecule experiencing itself and the large group of molecules with many different information processing systems and feedback loops that is me experiencing myself. There doesn't seem to be any conflict even in the famous split brain cases, where two different systems with separate mental abilities share some sub-systems.

It could be that consciousness is a fundamental part of the universe that can morph from one form to another. We know this is the case with Energy and Matter so I see no reason to assume that there are no other key elements that make up all we know of given our limited scope of the entire existence of the universe. — I like sushi

Can you elaborate on this idea of consciousness morphing?

This is certainly an interesting and rich landscape to explore but due to this it is also prone to blind speculation - a large reason I stay clear of discussions on consciousness. — I like sushi

You are wise. B:grin: Yes, every hypothesis or theory is speculation and assumption.

What have you read on this subject? I have just started reading Ian McGilchrist's 'The Matter With Things' and feel you may find some useful discussions in this. If short of time I recommend watching an interview or two with him or reading Philosophy Now Issue 164 (which focuses on him and other sin this area; although I confess I have not read the articles in this issue yet). — I like sushi

I have many books. But I can't find any that answer the question of how it happens. It just does. People like Tse, Damasio, and Gazzaniga even begin their books by saying we do not know. I particularly like Damasio, though. I'll look at McGilchrist. Thank you.

according to you, what is consciousness? — 180 Proof

Consciousness is subjective experience. That's all. Everything experiences it's own existence.

I wonder, then, why you want to say this. It pretty much forecloses discussion. — J

It doesn't foreclose discussion about the idea that consciousness is fundamental, and that it is simple, undifferentiated experience. It means a different way of viewing consciousness. But such things are not unheard of. People do thought experiments all the time, taking something as given, and seeing where it leads. Was Mary's skin tone pure white? Did she never scrape herself and see red blood? Preposterous. But we don't say that. We say, "Ok, we have someone who, despite having perfectly normal eyes, optic nerves, visual areas in the brain, etc., Has never seen anything but black and white."

Interestingly, I have usually read that 'consciousness' is a specific kind of 'mind'. So, for instance, a bacterium has a very rudimentary 'mind' but it isn't 'conscious'. — boundless

I know what you mean. And it seems easy to say no for bacteria and yes for humans. But those kinds of things that I've read never say how consciousness comes into the picture. As David Eagleman says in this video,

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 days, "Ok, well, do a triple interval and carry the 2, and then *click* here's the taste of feta cheese. — David Eagleman

and Donald Hoffman says in this video,

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 have no idea.

I'm interested in another idea. I don't know where it could lead. I don't know if it can lead anywhere. There are many theories about consciousness. Many internally consistent, but unprovable. But I don't see discussions about this idea. Debates between adherents of different theories giving pros and cons of each, but not discussion about a given theory. I think it could be interesting.

Define (non-sapient, non-sentient, non-mental) "consciousness" with an example that contrasts "consciousness" with non-consciousness. — 180 Proof

The idea is that there is no non-consciousness. Everything is experiencing. Some things experience sapience, sentience, mental. I don't know what percentage of living things experience each of those things. I don't suspect many non-living things experience any of them.

However, all things, living and non, experience.

I think the mistake we have made is equating consciousness with things like sapience, sentience, and mental. Which is understandable, because those are things we experience. I would say those are the defining characteristics of the species; the things that are unique, sometimes in degree and sometimes in kind, to humans.

But it lead us wrong. It made us think this is what consciousness is, yet has not even lead to a definition that all can agree on. What is consciousness. What is human consciousness? My position is that there is no such thing as "human consciousness". There is only the consciousness of each human. Human X experiences being biologically male, 6 feet tall, having perfect pitch, having sickle cell anemia, being great with the ladies, on and on. Human Y experiences being biologically female, having an eidetic memory, having arachnophobia, and loving pecan pie. Human Z experiences being biologically female, has no measurable IQ, has been wheelchair bound since birth, and has the brightest smile when you talk to her.

OK, sorry I missed your response to sushi. — J

No worries. I'm hoping to see half the posts here. :grin:

How could we tell the difference between being causal, and simply identifying with something causal? — frank

Sorry. I'm not sure I understand your question, so my response might be a non sequitur. is this something along the lines of, as I said above, if you can't tell the difference, what difference does it make?

in order to avoid the absurdity of referring to atoms as sapient or sentient. — Gnomon

I agree that that is absurd. But I do not equate consciousness with sapience or sentience. I can say atoms are conscious without meaning they are sapient or sentient.

The idea is that consciousness is always present. In everything, everywhere, at all times
— Patterner

You haven’t presented any reason for why you would think that. — Wayfarer

Not in this thread. I've given my reasons often, though. I don't take part in many other kinds of discussions here. But I am hoping to have discussions with the starting point, even if only for the sake of argument, that consciousness is fundamental. I don't want to present the reasons why I think it is, have someone say why those reasons are wrong, back-and-forth back-and-forth. That's what the discussions are usually about.

Also, some would argue that when one is in general anesthesia consciousness temporarily ceases (I believe that those who experienced general anesthesia report a different 'feeling' when they 'wake up' than the feeling they have when they wake up from sleep. Also, even in deep sleep it seems to be that there is a level of attentiveness which is absent in that state). So, if consciousness can temporarily cease, when it 'restarts' is it the same consciousness or not? — boundless

I am saying consciousness does not cease when one is in general anesthesia. The experience is of an anesthetized person. Which is very different from the experience of a person whose brain is working normally, sensory input going where it normally goes, stored input from the past being triggered, information processing systems and feedback loops working, etc. It is not the consciousness that is different between the anesthetized and awake person. it is the level of functioning of the person's brain that is different. The key is is that the functioning of the person's brain does not create consciousness.

If matter is fundamental and moves according to the laws of nature, and consciousness is an emergent property from matter. Consciousness, therefore, cannot be caus — MoK

I do not believe consciousness is an emergent property of matter. That is the very point of this thread. Consciousness is fundamental, not emergent.