I don't think the incel movement started with Covid lockdowns, nor will it end with the pandemic. — Vera Mont

Oh, that's interesting. I got the impression that kids avoided light and air before the lockdown as well, but maybe you are right. Hmm. I can't remember very well. My son didn't have any friends before either, but he didn't really want any.

Maybe they should get off their cellphones and go out to the baseball park — Vera Mont

There's nobody at the baseball park. They're all on their goddamn phones. My son is having this trouble. He can't attend school, but there are no children messing about outside like kids used to do, throwing stones and showing their bums to the peado in the bushes and fun stuff like that. So he can't even meet people that way.

Interesting you mention volunteering, he was actually so lonely he went and walked around the streets picking up litter hoping that someone would talk to him. Guess what happened. Nothing! Not even a good stoning from the local disaffected youth.

Heck, I'd consider glue sniffing under a bridge to be an acceptable social outcome for him at this stage.

And he's too old even for a paedo now. That ship has sailed. Fucking sad.

Physical attractiveness is not of paramount consideration for women, nor is charisma, compared to dependability, kindness and patience with children. — Vera Mont

Isn't the truth of that dependent on context though? What if a woman has lots of support and an independent income? Bags of security, no need of that from a partner. Might they not prioritise the fun stuff more?

I think this is what incels are complaining about. — Benj96

If that is what they are complaining about (and I'm not sure it is always) then they have a point. The tricky thing then is what the hell do they do about it? As you say, in a small community you can cultivate and display other traits and skills than height, wealth and looks. Is there a shortage of arenas men can display on? Is that the issue? Or is it really cultural after all?

Obviously, when I refer to incels as 'they', I do of course mean 'I'.

There is also a high risk that one robs you, one beats you up or even kills you. And no guarantee that any of those guys with a nice picture is nice in person, or literate or well-mannered - and none at all that any of them are compatible in temperament. (I don't know about you, I was never, not even when young and nubile, inclined to "shag a bunch" of relative virtual strangers.) — Vera Mont

Ha! Yeah, I probably should have said something like 'carefully get to know before shagging' instead of 'shag' but the basic point remains.

I never jumped into bed with loads of women either, but that's because I'm an incel.

And you get an unacceptable rate of inbreeding, as we see in some isolated populations. Tribal peoples have been aware of this, so they held - and still sometimes do - gatherings of young people to find mates; in many cultures, they routinely exchanged adolescents of either sex or both with another group. Stratified civilizations are more restrictive in the choice of mates - selecting permissible pairings by race, caste, creed, class and even to the point of strictly brokered marriage without the consent of one or both partners. — Vera Mont

I do think limiting the range of options helps greatly to cope with the burden of choice, especially when that choice is unrealistic or illusory. But paradoxically, and perhaps foolishly, we still crave maximal choice, at least for ourselves.

Could there be a mechanical explanation? I've heard the following kind of explanation, I'm not sure if it makes sense or not. But I do instinctively like mechanical explanations based on stats, behaviours of populations en masse, some reasonable assumptions on choices people make, etc. As opposed to cultural explanation, although they may turn out to be true. Anyway:

In small communities in which everyone knows each other, choice is limited and people know what each other are doing. So you get a couple of decent wealthy handsome guys, but the less attractive women know that they won't end up with them, one of the few young nice wealthy women likely will. So as not to waste their time, they go for one of the less attractive guys straight away. Basically everyone can see all the pieces in the game, and they know what pairings are likely to work out.

With dating apps, and a high general population, you get a completely skewed impression of the market. As a woman sitting in your room on your own, you enter your filters, and you get a menu of 50 nice handsome men to choose from. You shag a bunch of them and maybe one stays with you, maybe not. But you never even bother with a whole bunch of less attractive men because you don't think you need to, because you think you can get one of the ones your dating app is showing you.

Does that hang together? Or is it bollocks?

The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.) — Patterner

I agree. I think the brain, neuroscience, and structure and function generally, is totally relevant to the issue of what constitutes the self. But the self isn't consciousness. All reductionist theories of consciousness would be better reframed as theories of the self.

@RogueAI just wants someone to defend/explicate mysterianism, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. That's right isn't it?

I think consciousness is casual. But I'm hoping someone who agrees that it is, indeed, nothing but physics, but also thinks it is causal, can explain how they believe both things, since they appear to contradict each other. Because, otherwise, I'm looking at panprotopsychism. Which is an awkward ideas. Even if true, it doesn't seem to be anything about which we can do more than speculate. — Patterner

You could ask @apokrisis about that. He might be able to distinguish different types of cause and tell a top-down story that is consistent with the bottom-up one.

Personally I'm starting to think all causation is psychological.

I'm bored with explaining the same thing again and again. The model is a model of the self in its world. — apokrisis

Then explain it better. Why does a self have to be sentient?

So yes, we do feel like a self in it is world as that is the essence of the modelling relation which makes for a sentient organism. — apokrisis

No it doesn't. Sentience makes for a sentient organism. Why can't you have a modelling relation without sentience?

A rebuttal would be a counter argument. It is pretty obvious why consciousness is a bigger problem for anyone who thinks it arrived early in the Universe’s evolution. So much more than your glib assertion is required here. — apokrisis

OK, I'm not being clear. You said the hard problem was about fundamental stuffs. It isn't necessarily, Chalmers doesn't characterise it that way. It applies to any view that says consciousness 'arises' (pick verb of choice) from a physical system or entity or whatever. Acknowledging the existence of this challenge doesn't mean it isn't solved. Maybe your theory solves it. Maybe it's not a hard problem at all, only it seems hard to people, like me, stuck in outmoded habits of thought. It's just a name for an issue (possibly a pseudo-issue) that needs addressing. Acknowledging that there might be a burden to explain such an emergence does not commit you to thinking that the hard problem is unsolvable. Similarly, I'm a panpsychist, but I don't deny that there is a serious issue called the 'combination problem' that panpsychists have a burden to address. Maybe it's easy to address, maybe not.

It's a problem for anyone who thinks that consciousness arrived late in the universe, however that is construed.
— bert1

That’s an assertion and not an argument. — apokrisis

I wasn't trying to make a substantial point, merely to rebut your mischaracterisation of the hard problem in too narrow terms.

The thing to remember is the hard problem is a problem about fundamental “stuff”. — apokrisis

It can be framed in those terms but doesn't have to be. It's a problem for anyone who thinks that consciousness arrived late in the universe, however that is construed.

I did, because I think weak emergence is eliminativism. I might be wrong though... — Eugen

Oh, I see what you mean.

1. Is the logic of the model correct? — Eugen

Yes, pretty much, I think.

Applying this to consciousness, you've left out eliminativism as an option, which you probably should have included. In terms of the broadest possible scheme of options, I tend to think of it like this:

Either:
1) Panpsychism (everything is conscious)
or
2) Emergentism (of some kind) (some things are conscious)
or
3) Eliminativism (nothing is conscious)

2. There is an alternative to this model, i.e. a model in which ''absolutely anything you could think of" is not fundamental, but it is neither 100% reducible nor strongly emergent? — Eugen

Intuitively that doesn't seem possible, but I'd need to do some work on various ways something could be emergent.

3. Does this model apply to any type of reality? I mean, if instead of matter we assume that the most fundamental thing is an immaterial computer or information, does this change have any impact on the model? — Eugen

Intuitively, yes, it would apply to any kind I would have thought. Seems conceptually necessary, but I might not have thought of something.

For the physicalist, the physical substrate is fundamental, consciousness is epiphenomenal. — Wayfarer

I don't think that's right. Epiphenominalism is arguably a kind of dualism (property or substance, both fit). A non-causal invisible 'froth' somehow produced by some organisms. It's motivated by taking our subjective experience as real and not reducible to physical processes, at the same time as not violating the causal closure of the physical. Both of these are very plausible intuitions separately, but when smashed together look very odd. If I were a physicalist I would reject epiphenominalism as violating physicalism. I would want to say that consciousness just is a physical process.

1. If there really is a problem of consciousness, is this a matter-specific problem? — Eugen

No, the hard problem exists if we start with something (anything) that isn't consciousness, and try to explain consciousness in terms of that. Depending on what we start with, the 'hard problem' might be more, or less, difficult.

2. If we replace matter with another fundamental substance (except consciousness itself) can something change? — Eugen

I haven't heard anything so far that changes the situation. You get things like 'panprotopsychism' but that's basically just importing consciousness into substance. There's @Apokrisis 'pansemeiosis' which puts meaning as fundamental, or near-fundamental, and then, by stages, as complex systems evolve, they gain more of the constituents of consciousness (attention, predictive ability, some other stuff (can't remember)) until eventually we have a creature that can be said to be fully conscious. Personally I don't think that touches the hard problem, but it's an interesting approach nonetheless and may well be a good way to explain some mental functions if not consciousness.

Is this like the emptiness of Buddhism? — Art48

Not sure, that's @Wayfarer's department.

EDIT: An abyss is a word of a general relating background that less-abyssal things stand out from. That seems to fit the idea of substance.

"Why posit an ultimate ground? Is not what is sufficient? Is the world too imperfect for it to exist without it depending on something else? Does being ungrounded cause vertigo? A yawning abyss one is too fearful to approach?" – Fooloso4 — Art48

The abyss is the substance.

It's less about conclusions and more about the repeated observation that brain activity always and invariably precedes mental experiences such as thoughts, decisions, or perceptions. — Jacques

Sure, in humans and brainy animals. But that's not very interesting. It's totally consistent with the view that consciousness in rocks only occurs when there is rock-activity.

That means, they have observed that mental experiences always occur after the corresponding brain activities and never without such a lead-up. — Jacques

How do you get to that conclusion? It's come up lots of times on the forum before, but I don't see this strong connection.

As an abstract noun, the term seems to imply that "C" is a stable physical object — Gnomon

...or a property, like redness, roundness. X is red. X is round. X is conscious.

It's a good question. I'm a very extreme form of panpsychist at the moment, and I do think there are practically an infinite number of arbitrarily defined conscious individuals. I think the question of consciousness is in some ways far less interesting than the question of individuation. I don't agree that saying everything is conscious is saying nothing. It still means something.

Yes, I'm a panpsychist. I like to think I was a panpsychist before it became trendy. And I'm not one of those sell-out panpsychists who think that only basic particles are conscious. I'm a proper one who thinks rocks and plastic bags are conscious.

If so, then how is it that a property as fundamental as "consciousness" is so easily and frequently lost (e.g. sleep, head trauma, coma, blackout, etc) as well as altered by commonplace stressors (e.g. drugs, alcohol, sugar, emotions, violence, sex, illness, video games, porn, gambling, social media, etc) if "consciousness is closest to the ultimate ground of existence"? — 180 Proof

It isn't lost. The self is lost. Content is altered, but not consciousness.

Blimey! Nice going.

I realize that this is a tentative and superficial conclusion that some would say is pure heresy, but this is what has been bothering me for decades. — Jacques

I've yet to hear a good argument against your conclusion. Much of the linking of brains and consciousness seems to me to be assumed on the basis of alterations in brain function altering what we experience. But why can't the alterations in a rock's functioning alter the rock's experience? I'm not quite sure why it's considered reasonable to focus on brains particularly when looking for consciousness in nature.

By function @180 Proof is indicating a means of existing, not so much saying that they play a role, I think. Memories exist, but not as structure, not as property, but as function (or action, behaviours of neurons, something like that.) Driving exists, but if we take apart a car and its driver and examine all the parts, we don't find anything we can call driving. Thinking exists, but if we take apart a brain we don't find a object or property called 'thinking', but, the argument goes, we do observe the brain doing stuff, and that is thinking.

Beginning Logic, E. J. Lemmon. loved it.
Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy. Very good.
Leibniz, Monadology. Awful.
Locke, awful
Berkeley's essay and dialogues. Very good.
Hume, the moral philosophy one. Very good.
Ethics, V. M Hare ?? Hated it
James, Varieties if Religious Experience. Good.
James, lectures on Pragmatism. OK
Kant, Critique. Never bothered reading it.
Kant, Groundwork of a Metaphysic of Morals. Odd nonsense.
Schopenhauer never bothered reading it.
Kripke, Naming and Necessity. Didn't read it.
Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. OK
Bradley, Appearance and Reality. Very good.
Some Aristotle shite

Papers of note:
Goodman's new riddle of induction. Loved it.
Frege, Sense and Reference. very good


..can't remember the rest

I had a quick scan of the article on him in the IEP and he seems to be more of a political philosopher, not so much concerned with consciousness particularly. But I could be wrong, I know nothing about him really.

Maybe someday. — frank

Maybe. Discoveries do lead to new concepts. I'm very doubtful but I'm not against people trying.

More precisely, until now they are unable to say anything at all about how consciousness comes about. — Jacques

There have been some attempts, but they fail conceptually I think. Tononi's IIT model is really interesting and ingenious, but ultimately it's just another kind of functionalism and is vulnerable to the same conceptual critiques.

So did Apo help you understand Zizek?

I would like to confirm you by quoting the German neuroscientist Gerhard Roth, who said: "As about consciousness, it is a great mystery even for neuroscientists." — Jacques

Yeah, thanks. I hadn't heard that one particularly, but I've come across a number of neuroscientists saying similar things over the years. I don't really like invoking scientific authorities in this case, as my post, trollish title notwithstanding, isn't really about the science but the concepts. From what I understand there is a great deal of interesting science around identifying the neural correlates of particular experiences, which is great, but that doesn't say much about how consciousness comes about in the first place.

@Eugen I hope you enjoyed your encounter with apohotep

He's no more 'declaring them to be the same thing' than I'm declaring light to be the same thing as switches. — Isaac

This is just wrong.

Can anyone understand what this means in a way that doesn't entail a simple denial of the facts of Tononi's position?

Yes. I addressed that. Are you having trouble understanding what I've written? — Isaac

Oh yes.

I said he's no more declaring them... — Isaac

Yes and you're wrong. You are saying light isn't the same thing as switches. I, and Tononi, no doubt, would agree with you. He is declaring more than that with consciousness. He isn't saying that integrated information causes consciousness, or produces it, or gives rise to it, or wanks it, or cunts it off, or fugglwucks it, or frottages it, or switches it on, he says it is it.

He's no more 'declaring them to be the same thing' than I'm declaring light to be the same thing as switches. — Isaac

Yes he is, actually. He says consciousness is integrated information. But don't let simple facts get in the way.

"The integrated information theory (IIT) starts from phenomenology and makes use of thought experiments to claim that consciousness is integrated information."

It's the opening sentence.

Check yourself. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.2307/25470707