Well done.

This is a question in phenomenology. We’re able to categorize and discriminate something we (purport to) remember from something we (purport to) have only imagined. — J

I would guess part of the answer is detail. Memories are of experiences that come with much more detail than imaginings come with. Looking at my cell phone as I type this, my peripheral vision sees a lot, even if I'm not usually paying attention to it. I also hear backgrounds noises. Traffic, my wife typing, etc. Smells; my clothes touching me; my body's position on the couch, maybe in need of repositioning. On and on.

If I was imagining myself typing on my cell one, that's all it would be about. Yes, I could imagine a lot of extraneous details, but, unless I'm intentionally doing so, like if I'm experimenting for purposes of this topic, I rarely do.

So maybe we recognize memories of actual events because they have more "weight" than imaginings have.

Also, it's often said we remember things that have an emotional component. The tricks of this one very much applies to me. I was often told I worried about my children more than was "normal" or "healthy" when they were little. Nobody would say keeping a close eye on them in a store was wrong in any way. Child snatching does happen. But it could be argued that I imagined specific scenarios more often and in greater detail than I should have. :rofl: I would see something, imagine what could happen, and son have an elaborate story in my head. My heart would be racing, and it would take deliberate effort to get out of it. I had to remind myself that it was not happening, and I'd have to force myself to think of entirely other things. I remember one day in particular, about 25 years ago. I saw a young boy with blond hair in a van. I thought, "What if that was Dan? What if he had been kidnapped, and, months or years later, I happened to spot him in a van?" The emotion of it burned it into my memory.

Fortunately, the memory is of the imagining, not an actual kidnapping. Maybe for the first thing. I didn't imagine too much detail of a kidnapping before forcing my thoughts away.

I have a vivid memory of something that happened when my older son was 12 and my younger son was 7. We had left them home alone for an hour or so. My daughter, who is three years older than my older son, often babysat for them both when she was 12. I vividly remember that, when we came home, my younger son was chasing my older one around the dining room table with a butcher knife. It turns out I wasn't actually there, I just remember from being told after the fact. — T Clark

This kind of thing is very interesting. How do you know you werent't there? Has it been proven to you beyond doubt?

What if you fall while walking alone. You hit your head and lose consciousness. What if you regain consciousness, it is snowing, and see that you are covered in a dusting of snow.

if time is genuinely a fundamental dimension of our universe, why does it cease to exist the moment consciousness fades away? — ArtM

It doesn't. When you wake up from any of those scenarios, your body has undergone changes due to the passage of time. Not subjectively experiencing, or having memories of, the passages of time doesn't mean timer didn't pass.

Could we say "will" describes a situation where there are conflicting/competing wants, and only one can be satisfied?

Of course, the want for what you're addicted to often wins out over the want for life/health/family. So your will was weak. But if you resist it, your will was strong.

Exercising for desired greater health and strength is loathsome to some. When they battle their laziness and do some exercise, their will was strong.

But if that is "will", then, insignificant as it may seem, choosing chocolate cake over pecan pie, or a Beethoven string quartet over a Bach cantata, is an act of will.

That's the kind of thing I was wondering about when asking three difference between will and want. Is willing to do, or not do, something different than wanting?

Well of course they'd take it, but they can't spend their lives just daydreaming about a miracle — flannel jesus

Right. But they wouldn't refuse it, or be conflicted about accepting it. An addict might do either. And if the addict happily gives in after a time without, they'll eventually wish they hadn't.

Still, I think we think if "will" for positive things, too. My thinking when I first responded to you was that we only thought about will for things we wanted to resist. But it takes a lot of will to be an Olympic athlete, among any number of other things.

But I'm still not clear on whether or not we need to use that word instead of "want".

Yeah, that's true. But they don't not want better health. They just don't want to be tortured by wanting this important, objectively good thing that they can't have. If they managed to never think about their health again, then were offered the new medical cure...?

Without looking into the deep deep library of philosophical writings, I would say "want" is something kinda passive, and "will" is when you have a want and you actually do something about it.

Passively wanting to stop smoking is one thing, but actively taking steps to counter your addiction is another. That's the difference between want and will, to me, speaking semi-casually. — flannel jesus

That makes sense.

I can <kinda> probably think of a counter example, and would bet that my counter-example exists in reality. You want to hear it? — flannel jesus

Well what else am I here for?!? :grin:

I guess I'm just not sure of how you're using the word "will". If you don't use the word, does it change the meaning?
"You want to not want something."
"You will to not want something."

Maybe this discussion doesn't come up about things we only want, and don't also not want? Like health. We only want health. We don't want to not want health. The wanting to not want is only for the thing we're addicted to that prevents health, which we never don't want.

Is "will" better than "want" anywhere in that paragraph?

You said "you can want something, but also will not to want it". It's competing wants, and one overrides the other.

I wonder in what cases any want is actually destroyed. I often hear ex-smokers say they miss it every day. It's the want to be healthier overriding the want of the cigarette, every single day. And multiple times every day. The want for the cigarette is never gone.

Pretty much what I'm saying. One want overpowering another want. I wasn't sure how you meant it.

↪Truth Seeker I like this, and agree with the spirit of it, but it's not necessarily literally true - you can want something, but also will not to want it, and turn that will into reality. People who, for example, fight their own addictions can be argued to be doing that. — flannel jesus

It seems to me that's not willing not to want the addiction. It seems like choosing one or more wants (to be healthy; to be strong; to not have your life destroyed, and eventually ended, by a drug/gambling/whatever) over another want (the addicting)?

Yes, a galaxy has mass just like a star does, so it can be treated as a body in its proximity, but 60 GLY is not in proximity. The mass of a galaxy makes zero difference at that distance compared to the same mass that didn't form a galaxy, despite the fact that the galaxy masses somewhat less just like our sun masses less than the material from which it was composed. Those local differences in the gravitational field simply cannot propagate FTL. — noAxioms

I gotcha. But does 2nd hand count? If 60 GLY influences a galaxy that's right between us, and 30 GLY influences us...?

Why must any of them buy a cake?

The average mass density of the universe sets a sort of fixed curvature. Changes to that curvature, say the formation of a concentration of mass like a star, cannot effect something beyond its event horizon, ever. That would require gravitational waves (the carriers of the changes to the gravitational field) to move locally faster than c. A new star as close as 20 GLY similarly cannot make any gravitational difference to us (ever) compared to if that star had not formed. We will never see it. But it's within the visible universe this time, so the mass from which it is composed has had a causal effect on us, not true of the one 60 GLY away. — noAxioms

Not sure I'll say this right... I thought a galaxy could be treated as one body when calculating it's gravitational influence. That one body being the sum of all the stars, and everything else, in it. So each star is part of that sum, and the galaxy would have a weaker gravitational influence without it. No? Or were you thinking of a lone start in intergalactic space?

We share the same big bang perhaps. For a star 60 GLY away, they can see the same galaxy the we do, even if we can't see each other. Those are relations, just not direct causal ones. — noAxioms

Doesn't the gravity of each affect the other?

Why do philosophers on this forum tend to put language up on this pedestal as if it is somehow separate from the shared world we live in - as if we access language differently than we do the rest of the world. We don't. Any skepticism of how we experience the world would be logically applied to the way we hear and see words because we access words the same way we access everything else - via our senses. If we question what words mean, we question what words are, or even if they exist the same way apples on tables do. — Harry Hindu

While what you say is true. Language is expressed in physical ways, so we perceive it the way we perceive everything else. Everything is party of the danger works.

Still, language is different from anything else in ways. The physical means of its expression are irrelevant to, and separate from, the meaning of what is being expressed. We can see an apple. It never means anything, and is always the physical object. We can see written words. They always mean something other than the physical marks we see.

Waves crashing on the beach cause vibrations in the air that we hear. But the sound doesn't mean anything. It doesn't even mean waves crashing on the beach. It's just an effect of the physical interaction of waves and beach. Air passing through vocal cords that are manipulated in certain ways cause vibrations in the air that we hear as words. Those words mean something beyond just the effect of the physical interaction of the air and vocal chords.

So no, not separate from the shared world we live in. But different from most things in that shared world.

And I presume when you say “subjective experience” this may be demonstrated by saying this food you gave me is too spicy while I may feel it is rather mild. — Richard B

I think it is demonstrated by the fact that we can study things like the pain receptors in our mouths, and the TRPV1 gene, and explain why we have different opinions of how spicy something is in purely physical, objective terms. But we cannot explain the experience of the spiciness in any terms that will let someone who can't feel it know what it feels like.

Although that's not the best example, assuming they can feel burning on their skin, and we could compare it with that. A better example is you and I can have different opinions of how's sweet something is, but we cannot give someone who does not have taste buds any hint of an idea what sweetness is.

I understand what you mean when you describe a sunset and how it makes you feel, but I'm also making a lot of assumptions to derive meaning from what you say
— RogueAI

Is this sort of like when someone watching the same sunset next to you says it makes them feel "happy" and "at peace", despite the two concepts being universally known and recognizable, there may still be intricacies and subtleties that can vary greatly to the point of changing one's definition or idea of either quite significantly? — Outlander

I don't think we even have to worry about not being able to compare our experiences to see if they match. We don't need to know if my red is the same as your red. I think the idea is demonstrated more easily. We cannot make a blind person understand red, or sight in general. We cannot make a deaf person understand hearing. No physical description will give them any understanding whatsoever. Even someone who can see, but only in black and white, or even every color but red, will be unable to understand red. They know what green, blue, and yellow are, and can know that red is yet another color, but literally cannot imagine what it looks like.

We cannot explain "happy" and "at peace" to ChatGPT so that it feels those things. We can't even explain them to each other. Let's say Bach's music makes me happy, and I have heard you say it makes you happy. If you ask me how something you haven't experienced makes me feel, and it makes me feel happy, I might tell you it makes me feel the way Bach's music makes me feel. That might give you an idea of how it would make you feel. But I haven't described happiness, nor could I.

We talk like we know what we refer to when Nagel talks about “what it is like to be a bat” or when Hoffman talks about “the taste of mint”, but it could be nothing, something, or somethings, all of which are irrelevant to the meaning of our expressions. — Richard B

I think the point is that, even if we can't understand or express what the taste of mint is, we know we taste it. We know we have various, and various kinds of, subjective experiences. Every waking moment is filled with them. And they are everything. Who would give up their subjective experiences, and exist as a p-zombie or robot, receiving all of the same input, but having no experience of them? That would be the equivalent of suicide.

The only one we can really consider is taste. We don't need tastebuds at this point, I don't think. We can buy food that we know is edible and nutritious. We don't need to rely on taste to keep us safe. Or someone could prepare all of our food for us. But who would agree to have their tastebuds removed, or made non-functional? Such preferences have no pactical bake.

Removing any of our other senses would make us less safe.

I assume there are people who don't think bats are conscious. But, assuming they are, Nagel means there's something it's like to be a bat, for the bat. There's nothing it's like to be a rock, for the rock. A rock doesn't have a pov. A bat does. We can't really imagine what it's like to be as bat, because they are so different from us. Flight, echolocation, etc. But we don't need to know what it's like to be a bat to consider that there is something it's like for the bat; that it has a pov. It is subjectively experiencing, whatever that feels like to the bat.

Do you think that '2+2 = 4' is a mind-independent truth? I actually think it is. But I can't be sure of it. That's why I lean toward some form of matematical platonism. It seems that mathematical truths are discovered, not 'invented', at least in part. But I guess that I can't give compelling arguments about it. — boundless

If they are invented, not objective, then wouldn't 2+2=5 be an equally valid invention?

I don't care what I know, I care about a model of what is that doesn't depend on mind, which makes empirical evidence take a secondary role. — noAxioms

Can you just assume there is such a model that you don't know about? If so, and you don't care what you know, then your quest is over.
:grin:


I really don't understand what you're after. You want a way to prove that there is a reality that doesn't depend on mind. But the mind can't know what that model is, because that defeats the purpose. Is that right?

That would be evidence of not-solipsism... — noAxioms

How so? I can't know that the other person describing the same thing I saw and the thing I saw are not both products of my imagination.

but the fact said place is said to exist because it is being described by one or more observers makes its designation as such pretty dependent on the observation. — noAxioms

I say it does not exist because it is being observed. I say observing it is the means by which we know it exists, but it would exist if it was never observed.


Regarding the casual power of integers, 7 + 3. What caused "10" to exist in the mind of probably everybody who read that sentence?

In a topic such as this one, I think not. — noAxioms

Fair enough.

Do I relate to all those worlds I don't see? I think I do, because they're necessary for explaining what I see. — noAxioms

Again, i really don't know what you mean. In what way is any world you don't see explaining what you do see?

I can talk about the fork I used at dinner without meaning it's the only, or the preferred, fork.
— Patterner
But you've measured many forks, but measured only one world. This leads some (not all) to conclude there is but 'the' one world, and if 'what there is' is defined as what is observed, then there is indeed but the one world, but that definition isn't a mind-independent one. — noAxioms

If two minds that don't know each other, and don't know what the other is doing, independently go to the same place, and described it the same way, does that not mean there is something independent of either mind?

I would like to gracefully withdraw from this thread. I do not understand what anyone is saying. — Athena

I'm with you. :rofl:

Still, I'll respond to this:

Number 17 is not matter. Therefore, number 17 or the word "blue" can not be caused nor effect anything. — Athena

I don't think they spring from nothing, for no reason.

I never realty understand these conversations. Before anything on the planet, possibly in the universe, existed that had even the vaguest hint of understanding of mathematics, there would have been any number of instances when groups of objects joined together.
— Patterner
Not contesting that. What I am contesting is that it wasn't 'the universe' until those 'understanding' things designated it as such. Without said observation, it is merely 'a universe', not the preferred one. — noAxioms

The syntax suggests that this world exists to the exclusion of any other, all because it's the one we see. A far less mind-dependent wording would be 'a world' which doesn't carry any implication of being the preferred world. — noAxioms

I don't know what to make of this. I can talk about the fork I used at dinner without meaning it's the only, or the preferred, fork. If it was my turn at bat, I wouldn't ask the ball boy for a bat, because he needs to knows which one. There are many, but I need to specify. And I'll be in all kinds of troubles if someone asks what I'm doing this weekend, and I say, "I'll have to ask a wife."

The universe I'm in may or may not be the only universe. But it's the only one I have any experience of. If I start talking about "a" universe, people will be confused. They'll probably stop me and ask what I mean by "a".

as they both agree the idea of addition also must exist in each other's minds; it's the same addition each sees separately, in each other's minds, in 2+2 and in 3+17. This is both mind-independent (shared between two different subjects), and only there because of the minds that know addition.
— Fire Ologist

OK, but mind-independent only in the sense of "not confined to my mind." It doesn't tell us whether these intersubjective sharings are mind-independent in the sense of "about something that exists regardless of whether either of us has the idea of it." — J

I never realty understand these conversations. Before anything on the planet, possibly in the universe, existed that had even the vaguest hint of understanding of mathematics, there would have been any number of instances when groups of objects joined together. Rocks rolled down a mountain, and came to rest among other rocks. Leaves fell from plants, and landed interspersed with each other. Whatever scenario. My guess would be that, despite there being nothing in existence that could count or add, in none of those instances was the number after the groups combined anything other than the combination of the numbers of the separate groups.

I've only read the OP so far. Apologies if I'm repeating what's been said.

Does the information appear in our minds when we read our PC screen? Neither would be the case, is my theory. We function as another reader who transcribes and in which effects arise in our learned language and in our cognitive apparatus that in turn affect us as an organism. — JuanZu

I'm not sure how you mean all of this.

Elecktra's first appearance was in Daredevil #168.
I was born in 1963.
The V of V in the key of C is the D chord.
Richard the Lionheart died because a wound in his shoulder from a crossbow went gangrenous.
The US once had a 20 cent coin.

Surely there's something on that list you did not know a minute ago. The information is now in your mind, and it's there because you read your computer screen.

It isn't conscious because there isn't a working memory establishing a sensory information feedback loop. What I mean by "working" is a system whose behavior resembles goal-directed behavior (intent). — Harry Hindu

Our definitions of consciousness are very different. I don't think there needs to be feedback loops or goal-directed behavior (intent) for there to be subjective experience - consciousness. I think subjective experience is in all things, but what a rock subjectively experiences is very different from what something with a working memory establishing a sensory information feedback loop subjectively experiences.

Otherwise, i wouldn't know why "a working memory establishing a sensory information feedback loop" suggests subjective experience. The HP. Why doesn't that take place without subjective experience; metaphorically, as Chalmers put it, "in the dark"?

The scribbles do not mean the sounds. The sounds and scribbles are different representations of the same thing - that big hunk of earth rising above sea level. — Harry Hindu

The scribbles represent the sounds of the spoken words. Writing did not develop independent of the spoken words. It was created to represent the sounds of what was being spoken. We tell someone learning to read to "sound it out."

How can you say the rings are not about the rainfall if you can glean information about the rainfall from the rings? What do you mean by "about" and is it any different from what you mean by "mean"? What does "informed" mean to you? How are you informed about anything and what are you informed of if not the causal processes that preceded what it is you are talking about explaining? — Harry Hindu

DNA is code. The four bases of DNA are the molecules adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). There are sixty-four possible triplet combinations, or codons. Most codons are code for an amino acid. TCA means the amino acid serine. AAA means lysine. Proteins are amino acids strung together. The code tells the molecular machinery which proteins to manufacturer.

But amino acids and proteins don't mean DNA. Nobody who didn't know anything about DNA would look at proteins, and hypothesize the existence of DNA. The effect doesn't mean the cause.

I don't dispute that there is information to be found in effects. Tree rings, the Grand Canyon, the broken glass in my kitchen floor... Like proteins, these are effects. Their causes are much less complex than the causes of proteins, allowing us to make some deductions. But the information we can deduce looking backwards is not the same. There's no code.

And there isn't any code looking in the other direction - from the rain and temperatures to the tree rings, from the river to the canyon, or from the fall to the broken glass. But there is when looking from DNA to proteins.

I don't know if I'm expressing myself any more clearly.

Thank you for your well-considered response. I've had a very busy last few days, so haven't been able to response yet.

I like your overall view. But I don't know if I understand aspects of it, because I don't see how it solves the HP. Remove me from the process, and view the remainder as an object. Why is that object - a process that continues without my observation - not conscious?

Thinking the world is physical is what creates the mind-body problem — Harry Hindu

You may be right. But, so far, I think what creates the problem is our being so secure in our mastery of all things that we think we can know that nothing we are not aware of can exist.

You might argue that there are particles and then processes of particles (which is essentially more dualism). — Harry Hindu

Particles in motion, as opposed to particles not in motion, doesn't seem like dualism to me. How do you mean?

It does seem that energy is more fundamental than matter as energy seems more prevalent than matter as most of the universe is a vacuum (the absence of matter) yet EM energy permeates the vacuum. Matter appears to be something like energy feedback loops.
- Harry Hindu

Where are you saying information is?
— Patterner

Everywhere causes leave effects. — Harry Hindu

Can we talk about this more? I think of information as something that means something else. A mountain is a big hunk of earth rising above the earth surrounding it. A mountain doesn't mean something it is not. It doesn't even mean 'mountain'. It simply is a mountain.

In information systems, things mean other things; things that they are not. In spoken language, sounds mean things they are not. Because we have all agreed to it, a particular combination of sounds mean 'mountain'. This combination of sounds is not, itself, a mountain. It's just a combination of sounds. But we have all agreed that those sounds mean 'mountain'.

In written language, we have all agreed that squiggles of certain shapes on paper (or a computer screen) mean other things. Usually, they mean sounds; sounds which, themselves, mean something. The squiggles mountain mean the sounds most of us are now hearing in our heads, which, in turn, mean the big hunk of earth rising above the earth surrounding it.

DNA is an information system. It has meaning. It is about something that it is not. DNA is two complimentary strands of nucleotides running along sugar phosphate backbones, and joined by hydrogen bonds. DNA means chains of amino acids and proteins, which, once constructed, build living organisms.

I think your definition is different, if any cause>effect fits it. we are able to glean information from many such situations. because of what we know, we can learn things about the weather many years ago by looking at the rings of across section of a tree. However, that does not mean the rings are about the rainfall, or that the rainfall is about the rings, so it does not fit my definition.

I don't know. We've done very well thinking the world is physical. The problem is in thinking we know all there is to know, and can rule out the possibility of anything non-physical. That attitude is what we need to abandon. If we do, there's no hard problem.

But ok, how do we abandon the term physical? What are processes? I mean, a processes of what? What is doing the processing? What is the medium?

But how do we know that there isn't something it is like to be the robot? If the robot reacts to the world the same way we do, how would we know whether it has "experiences" or not? How does a physical brain have experiences? You would need to answer this question to then assert what has experiences and what does not. — Harry Hindu

You're absolutely right. And my entire "theory" - the OP of this thread - is that the robot does subjectively experience. Nothing in the universe is made of special stuff. It's all the same.

Working memory is a physical process. So is the mind. Why are physical processes conscious? Why does it not take place without subjective consciousness? Why aren't we P-zombies? Nothing about physical properties or processes suggests subjective experience.

What does Nagel even mean by "what it is like"? There is a what it is like to be anything which are the properties of what it means to be that thing. There is a what it is like to be a table that distinguishes it from being a chair, there is a what it is like to be a mind which distinguishes it from being a wave in the ocean. — Harry Hindu

The idea is that there is something it is like to be a bat to the bat, but there is nothing it is like to be a table to the table. If there is something it is like to be something to that thing, then that thing is conscious.

The hard problem seems to be more of a problem of language - of explaining what the actual problem is. — Harry Hindu

The HP is explaining why the physical activity comes with subjective experience. Why isn't there something it is like to be a table? Or, perhaps more important, why isn't there something it is like to be a robot that has sensors that detect photons, distinguishes between wavelengths, and performs different actions, depending on which wavelength? Does the robot subjectively experience red and blue? Does it subjectively experience anything at all? Does it have a feeling of being?

A few quotes, in case someone else's wording makes it more clear.

This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere. — David Chalmers

Donald Hoffman says it at 7:00 of those video, while talking about the neural correlates of consciousness, and ions flowing through holes in membranes:

Why should it be that consciousness seems to be so tightly correlated with activity that is utterly different in nature than conscious experience? — Donald Hoffman

Chalmers & Kuhn discuss it in this video.

Chalmers:. "The fire hurts, I take my hand away from the flame.”

Kuhn:. “But if it, if it didn’t hurt, and you had no awareness, you would’ve still taken your hand away because that’s all determined by the physical processes.” — Chalmers and Kuhn

It doesn't need to be contradictory to be fallacious — Wayfarer

The point is it's not a contradiction. Claiming that two things that aren't contradictory are contradictory doesn't make them contradictory.

and you've presented no argument, or any references, for why it should be considered true, beyond your belief that it must be the case. There is no evidence from you as to whether 'certain groups of particles' are conscious, or whether conscious organisms can be considered 'groups of particles'. — Wayfarer

If only I had thought to say something like

I'm just writing all this as though it's fact. It makes sense to me. But I know it's not verified, and I can't imagine how it could be. It isn't even a theory, unless someone figures out a way to test it. (Although there's no way to test String Theory.) — Patterner

in my OP.


No, I'm not claiming to have any evidence for this. I can't imagine what that could be, even if it's true. (By the same token, no other theory of consciousness has ever been proven.) And I didn't invent the idea of proto-consciousness. I'm trying to think how it might work. Maybe tied up with information. If you aren't interested in the idea, so be it.

First, the contradiction. You said:

Although human consciousness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of human consciousness
— Patterner

I then presented a passage from Thomas Nagel, which says the opposite:

It is not possible to derive the existence of consciousness from the physical structure of the brain in the way in which it is possible to derive the transparency of glass from the molecular structure of silicon dioxide.

To which you responded, 'I agree' - even though it contradicts what you had said. So you are agreeing with both 'X' and 'not X' which is a contradiction — Wayfarer

The idea that the physical properties of particles are why particles combine, but are not why certain groups of particles are conscious, is not a contradiction.

The idea that the subjective experience of particles is not why particles combine, but is why certain groups of particles have a group consciousness, is not a contradiction.

Now combining the two:

The physical properties of particles are why particles combine, and the subjective experience of particles is why certain groups of particles have a group consciousness.

There is no contradiction between the two parts of that sentence. And saying them is not saying, or even implying, the existence of consciousness is derived from the physical structure of the brain in the way in which it is possible to derive the transparency of glass from the molecular structure of silicon dioxide.


Regarding living and dead bodies, I'm aware of all that. I never said anything to the contrary. I didn't bring corpses into the conversation. When you did, I simply said the particles have the same properties. And they do. Same mass, same charm, same spin, etc. That doesn't mean I don't grasp basic distinctions. If you want to start a thread describing and defining life and all its activities, I bet it would be great.

If you can't see the contradictions in what you're writing, there's no point in continuing. — Wayfarer

I don't see how it is more of a contradiction than thinking that the properties of the molecules of paint that make it able to be spread on a fence, where it dries and hardens, protecting the wood, are not the same properties that make it white. Any manipulation or activity of one property does not necessarily have anything to do with another property in every instance.

Bodies and organisms comprise the same materials as inorganic matter, but there's obviously a profound difference in kind between them. As far as their chemical composition is concerned, they're the same, but the processes which characterise organic life have ceased to operate. And there are many specific types of molecules that are only found in the presence of organic life. — Wayfarer

Are those molecules instantly gone when the organism dies?

What I meant by contradictions - you said

Although wetness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of wetness.

Although human consciousness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of human consciousness.
— Patterner

I then presented a passage from Thomas Nagel, which says: — Wayfarer

It is not possible to derive the existence of consciousness from the physical structure of the brain in the way in which it is possible to derive the transparency of glass from the molecular structure of silicon dioxide.

To which you responded, 'I agree' even though it clearly contradicts what you were arguing. — Wayfarer

The physical properties of particles cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances. Once they have combined in certain ways, into certain arrangements, the experiential property of particles - which was there from the beginning - causes the emergence of human consciousness.

Should I unpack that at all?

Upthread, your model had difficulty even distinguishing the living from the dead. — Wayfarer

I said the particles in a dead body have the same properties as they had when the body was alive. That may be incorrect. But if so, I don't see how it's a contradiction. Can you explain?