@Eugen, you might get more responses if your post was more than "Go and research Zizek for me so I don't have to."

But there is not more to phenomenal consciousness than phenomenal consciousness.

I can't imagine many people on this forum disagreeing with you and defending the idea that God is against homosexuality. In any case, this seems as much a question of scriptural interpretation than philosophy. Even if there are Christians on the forum who do think God forbids homosexuality, it's becoming somewhat offensive to say that out loud. Personally, even if I were a Christian I would still see the Bible as of its time. Go forth and multiply is hardly a socially responsible thing to do these days, and God being a corduroy-wearing 21st century liberal I'm sure he would be hoping someone would update the rules a bit.

I suggest that we don’t know that other people are conscious, insofar as it is simply part of what it means to be a person. Maybe you could describe it as an animal certainty, but it seems a stretch to describe it as a knowing.

But then, how do we know people are persons? Again, what is significant here isn't knowing or judging that they are persons but relating, communicating, giving and asking for reasons, and so on.

It follows that we don’t use standards to make that judgement, because there is no judgement--unless the question comes up. And now that the question has come up, we find it difficult to judge. This I suppose is why it's also a difficult philosophical question. — Jamal

I read your post, and I've just read it again! But I wasn't very clear in my first response. I get that you think other people are conscious and that this isn't the result of a judgement. Nor, presumably, do we have to be convinced by the argument from analogy before we think of other people as conscious. It just comes naturally. I wonder if it is possible to make arguments instinctively? Or is there's something else going on completely? Probably the latter, no doubt.

Starting with a concept of phenomenal consciousness which is not defined functionally, and then offering an explanation of that in terms of structure and function. An example of this is Tononi's IIT. He starts off great in his paper with a concept of phenomenal consciousness. Then he goes on to develop and ingenious idea of integrated information. And then he just declares that they are the same thing. Which they're not. Integrated information is integrated information. Consciousness is consciousness. If he could explain why a system could not integrate information without being conscious, he would have conceived it, and we would have a credible theory.

Yes, but we're not talking here about the possibility, we're talking about the actuality. Chalmers' actual failure to conceive it. Not its impossibility of being conceived. Why does the one indicate the other? Is Chalmers the pinnacle of human mental ability such that if he can't conceive it, no one can? — Isaac

I'm not that interested in Chalmers, probably because I suspect I'll agree with him about most things. I haven't actually read much of his hard problem stuff. I'm saying it's about conceptual possibility, not someone's actual ability to conceive it. I haven't seen any evidence of people conceiving it anyway. When they claim to, it usually using a different definition of 'consciousness' than phenomenal consciousness. Just like your earlier definition.

Do you have some argument in favour of that conclusion, or is it just a foundational principle for you? — Isaac

Something might be conceivable even without anyone to conceive it. It's about possibility. It's more obvious to think of in terms of logical possibility. - (a & -a) was as true 13bn years ago as it is now, no? Same with conceivability.

What's of philosophical interest (I think) is that you (in common with bert1 and Chalmers it seems) want to say that your ability to comprehend any given theory's model, to conceive of things the way it does, has some bearing on its veracity. It's that oddity I'm interested in. — Isaac

Conceivablility isn't a subjective feat, it's a reasonably public property of propositions. Just as the validity of inferences is objective. If we disagree about them, someone is wrong. I'm turning into @Banno

Imagination might be a subjective feat, perhaps.

1- how are qualities like the color red created, 2 - how are qualities from different modalities like a visual field and feelings and sounds bound together to be experienced simultaneously, 3 - assuming such consciousness is created how is it causally efficacious so that it adds something beyond mere automation. — lorenzo sleakes

All very good questions. Each worth a thread.

I suggest that we don’t know that other people are conscious, insofar as it is simply part of what it means to be a person. — Jamal

Really? Do you not find the argument from analogy completely compelling? I know some don't, but I struggle to understand why not.

The producer is so different from the product it seems impossible that they are the same kind of thing. But maybe that's my failing.
— bert1

An orchestra produces a Beethoven symphony. Do you find that equally impossible? Is an orchestra the same kind of thing as a symphony? — Isaac

Good question. I find that conceptually possible, because I do think the symphony is the same kind of thing as the orchestra. Beethoven symphony, however conceived (Is it the score? Or the playing? Or the sound waves?) are structure and function. An orchestra is also structure and function. That the other produces the one does not seem difficult to me.

What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.
— bert1

OK...

Consciousness is the label we give to the re-telling of recent mental events with a first-person protagonist. — Isaac

If that's what it is, then it's perfectly explainable in terms of structure and function, at least to a certain depth. We agree on that. It's just not how phenomenal consciousness is typically defined.

It evolved to give a coherent meta-model to various predictive processing streams so that responses could be coordinated better in the longer term which provides a competitive advantage worth the calorie cost of doing to in large bodies living in complex environments (usually social ones). It doesn't 'feel like' anything, we use the term 'feels like' in conversations such as these as it's something we've learned to say in these circumstances from a particular position (those taking that position use the term, it's like a badge or token of membership of that group). Our linguistic response to consciousness within social hierarchies is not the same as actual consciousness.

How was that? Not "do you agree with that?", I mean in what way do you find that not even conceptually possible?

Yes, I do find that conceptually possible. But you started with a concept that was not too different from the explanation. If you're happy with your definition and explanation, good for you.

I haven't been following this thread, although I probably should be. It's a good OP. I think I agree with your title, but probably for reasons you might not like: I don't think "phenomenal consciousness" makes a lot of sense. It has the smell of ineffable qualia and such other nasties. — Banno

No worries, I know we disagree on the substantive issues. I was invoking you on one or two of the logical matters which I thought you might already know about. The types of possibility and how they interact, for example. No matter.

I don't like qualia either, although I'm fine with phenomenal consciousness. I know they are supposed to be the same, but I think the notion of qualia are unnecessarily confusing. Too evocative of invisible pixies, which I don't think phenomenal consciousness is.

— fdrake

What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.
— bert1

I know this wasn't addressed to me. But I can think of two possible requirements you might want from this? The first demands a bare bones functional account, "how does body make consciousness?", which would perhaps make that production conceptually possible by making it empirically possible. — fdrake

Yes, that would be good. We have another verb 'make'.

Like you, I have always though that empirical possibility entails conceptual possibility. But maybe that's not right. Maybe some would say there might be a whole load of things that are empirically possible that, even if we knew what they were, wouldn't make sense conceptually. That's a weird position. That should be distinguished from mysterianism, which (I guess) is the position that we may never know how consciousness arises from the physical (because of our own limitations), nevertheless it would make conceptual sense if we could grasp it.

The second is a conceptual demand, "can a method of producing consciousness be articulated without internal contradiction?". — fdrake

That's a logical rather than conceptual demand isn't it? Further upstream? I'm not sure, I haven't thought a great deal about the different kinds of possibility and how they interact. But if so, I'm definitely demanding that as well.

For the conceptual demand, someone could say "consciousness arises from the eggs the moon lays in human skulls" - which seems to be conceptually possible. — fdrake

Oh, OK. I would say this was definitely logically possible. But not conceptually possible. (Maybe our concepts of possibility are different, not sure). I don't think it's conceptually possible for consciousness to be 'produced' (random verb!) by brains. Nor do I think it's conceptually possible for consciousness to arise from the moon laying eggs in human skulls, for exactly the same reasons. Neither brains nor moon-laid eggs can produce consciousness, because both brains and moon-laid eggs are physical. By 'physical', I mean defined in terms of structure and function. Consciousness is not defined in terms of structure and function. The conceptual difficulty arises from explaining non-structure and function in terms of structure and function. I have been accused of begging the question here, and assuming that consciousness isn't structure and function. But assuming is not the same thing as starting from what we mean by a word, especially when the referent of that word is a given, the least doubtable thing possible (and I know many reject that as well).

But it goes against what we know about eggs, the moon, the body, and human skulls. Regardless of that, those contradictions seem only to come from the inconsistency of that concept of consciousness with an aggregate of empirical data. So something can be conceptually possible even if we know it is empirically false. — fdrake

Something can indeed be conceptually possible if it is empirically false. If your claim had not been about consciousness, but about, say, cars, which are definied in terms of structure and function, I would agree. So:

"cars arise from the eggs the moon lays in human skulls" is conceptually possible but not empirically possible because of what we know about moons, laying, eggs and skulls. We've got structure and function producing more structure and function, which is conceptually easier, an 'easy problem' if you like.

Like Lord of the Rings. Does conceptually possible mean something more than "can be imagined"? — fdrake

Yes, I think it means more than that. I vaguely remember Aule creating the dwarves from the earth (or something) and it didn't work, they weren't alive. Aule, perhaps, was trying to get non-structure and function from structure and function, which Tolkien might have thought was impossible as well, I have no idea. But Iluvatar took pity on the dwarves and gave them life. Assuming 'life' means 'consciousness' here, which I think it may well do, the earth didn't spontaneously become conscious on its own, that would have been conceptually impossible. Iluvatar had to do something radically different. Aule's creating consciousness (if he had succeeded) is imaginable in the sense that I can just suspend disbelief and sort of gloss over it in my head, sort of do an [insert magic here] exercise, but not conceptually possible. Of course, Iluvatar breathing consciousness into dwarves has its own conceptual difficulties if we interpret this as substance dualism. Conceptually, substance dualism seems impossible because of the interaction problem.

Edit: something I assumed was that empirically possible implies conceptually possible. Another alternative is that something can in fact be true, but nevertheless cannot be conceptually possible. Reality as Lovecraftian abomination.

That is a worrying thought.

So, y'know, purposive behaviour, ability to adapt to new scenarios, attempts to communicate, appearance of sensations and emotions - the kind of things we'd expect from a human agent. The more it quacks like a duck, the more likely it is that it's a duck.

@fdrake That's interesting. Those premises form the basis of the argument by analogy, or the abductive argument. No science necessary. An armchair philosopher who had never touched a Bunsen burner could make that argument. You could also make the same argument, but weaker, for rocks.

deleted because off topic

My question is: how would we scientifically go from there? How would science "nail down" the question of whether X is conscious or not? What tests could we perform, that would give us conclusive proof of consciousness (or lack thereof)
— RogueAI
I find this question really good and challenging!!!!
The steps are the following
1. identify a sensory system that feeds data of which the system can be conscious of.
2.Test the ability of the system to produce an array of important mind properties
3. Verify a mechanism that brings online sensory input and relevant mind properties.(conscious state)
4. evaluate the outcome (in behavior and actions) — Nickolasgaspar

I wasn't gong to quote Nickolasgaspar but I will here as he offered a response to RogueAI's question.

Predictably, this is a purely functionlist analysis. This requires either assuming a functionalist definition of consciousness to make it work, or, repeating (begging) the question, as in #3. RogueAI is precisely asking how we 'verify a mechanism that brings online sensory input and relevant mind properties.(conscious state).'

If the ultimate nature of matter is mental (i.e., idealism is true), doesn't that blow neuroscience out of the water? Isn't the whole point of neuroscience based on the assumption that mind and consciousness are produced by a physical brain? — RogueAI

Yes, which is to say that philosophy, to borrow @fdrake's metaphor, is 'upstream' of science, perhaps. When assessing a claim we could go through the following steps:

1) Is it logically possible? (this is the headwaters, the spring of the stream). If no, it's false. If yes, proceed to:
2) Is it conceptually possible? (this is a wee burn perhaps, as the local Picts say where I live). If no, it's false. If yes, proceed to:
3) Is it physically possible? (we should probably widen this out to a full-on river here, as there's a lot to this stage). I'm not sure this is totally separate from the previous stage. New concepts might emerge as a result of physical investigations, which make things conceptually possible that weren't previously conceived of. This has not happened yet in the science of consciousness, IMO, to the extent that it is now conceivable that consciousness is emergent in some way from brain structure and function.
4) there are other kinds of possibility after this... technological, practical etc, which aren't relevant here.

Debates on consciousness are at the divide between the conceptual and the physical here, I suggest. Disagreement welcome.

As a panpsychist I go much further, and assert that any behaviour at all, including the behaviour of atoms, is valuable for the mind of the atom. Everything happens because of consciousness. I've been toying with the idea that all causation is actually psychological.
— bert1

I would class this understanding along with such other non-physicalist explanations of reality as Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis. They are metaphysical approaches and, so, there is no empirical way of testing them. They are not facts, they are ways of thinking about something. As I see it, they are not useful ways of thinking, but that is certainly opinion, not fact. — T Clark

'Metaphysical' yes, although perhaps 'conceptual' might be a better word. Opinion is contrasted with knowledge rather than fact. Panpsychism might be a fact, but one that I don't know empirically. I might know it conceptually though.

Well if nature is fundamentally physical, then subjective experience doesn't conceptually fit. The biological level is still function and structure. — Marchesk

That's interesting. I frequently wonder what the word 'physical' means. I think it may be 'whatever has structure which does stuff (function).' And I agree that subjective experience doesn't really fit, as I said in the OP, "Why can't all that (structure and function) happen anyway without consciousness?"

Why should we accept that definition for machine consciousness? It's not the same thing as qualia. You just created an arbitrary definition and assigned it to 'consciousness'. It doesn't answer the question of whether a machine can have qualia. — Marchesk

Indeed. This happens a lot, even academics do it. Functionalists sometimes end up saying 'but that's just what I mean by consciousness'. Which is fine, but then they're not talking about consciousness as we know it, Jim.

"Why did you do that?" - list of motives
"Why is the sky blue?" - physical cause of 'blueness'
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" - surprising answer (or non answer) designed to amuse
"Why do humans have noses?" - evolutionary (or developmental) advantages of the nose...

"Why do we have consciousness?" - ...

... what's the kind of answer that goes there? — Isaac

In this thread, it's like your second example: "Why is the sky blue?" - physical cause of 'blueness'

I want to know the physical 'cause' of consciousness, if anyone thinks there can be a plausible account of this. But I'm happy if people want to use a different verb than 'cause', because 'cause' implies a duality that some might not want.

OK, science geeks, how do we determine whether an AI is conscious? What do we do? What tests do we give it? — RogueAI

Another good question. It seems to me we'd have to assume a hypothesis first that makes a prediction which we then test. How do we choose a hypothesis? All the (serious) current theories of consciousness make predictions that are compatible with observation. How do we choose between them? I think we have to do it conceptually at the moment - check for things like consistency, fidelity to definitions, entailing the fewest/least-serious problems etc.

Specifically with regard to AI, it has been argued that we might be able to interrogate it to see if it understands the concept of consciousness, to see if can introspect its own awareness. I'm not sure about that.

Suppose we create a mechanical brain that we believe is functionally equivalent to a normal working brain. For those who think science can explain consciousness, how would we scientifically determine whether the mechanical brain is conscious or not? — RogueAI

Good question. Indeed the same question applies to other humans too. How do we scientifically determine if another human is conscious, without begging any questions?

EDIT: I'm still replying to posts from page 6. Nicky's unfortunate suicide should hasten the process of me catching up. It would be weird to reply to his posts without him being able to respond.

I'll let the moderators make the judgements about banning, but I strongly disagree with your judgement about the quality of his philosophy. I think he brought something valuable to the forum. Again - that's not a criticism of this decision. — T Clark

I more or less agree. I found his unpleasantness easy to ignore. But he pretty much asked to be banned in his last post, and he robusty refused moderation.

@Nickolasgaspar Don't martyr yourself just yet! You've made some interesting points I still want to get to. Especially where you said something about necessary and sufficient conditions.

EDIT: Part of the reason I created this thread is to give you a place to let off some steam without being off-topic, so you were less likely to be banned.

I have posted many times a specific scientific definition of the term. Try to keep up or don't waste my time. — Nickolasgaspar

Your definition is theory-laden. It's not the definition in the OP of the thread. I don't recall you offering a definition of the self. Fooloso4's statement is well within the bounds of reasonable. If you feel Fooloso4 is wasting your time, I suggest in future you cut your losses at the moment you finish reading a time-wasting post. It seems to me that that you compounded your lost time by further investing in a reply.

It means that people with existential anxieties will always find excuses to embrace a comforting idea able to separate their existence from their a biological body with an expiration date. — Nickolasgaspar

I do explicitly say in my post the self can be distinguished from consciousness. I'll die, and nothing of me will be left over, except my products I suppose. And my profound influence on Western culture.

It's just that there's little woo potential in pretending the relationship between legs and walking is deeply mysterious so we just accept it as simple. — Isaac

What woo am I trying to monger?

Yup. The one in my avatar has been a good friend. Reliable. Good listener.

@Nickolasgaspar

Right, I have got around to looking at a couple of those articles you linked to. Thank you for doing that. I was relieved to discover they were concise and clear summaries, which makes my job a lot easier. Starting with this one:

https://neurosciencenews.com/l5p-neuron-conscious-awareness-14997/

This article very encouragingly and clearly stated the distinction between state consciousness and contents of consciousness:

Most neuroscientists chasing the neural mechanisms of consciousness focus on its contents, measuring changes in the brain when it thinks about a particular thing – a smell, a memory, an emotion. Quite separately, others study how the brain behaves during different conscious states, like alert wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep or anesthesia.

Great! It goes on to say that most neuroscientists think the two are indivisible, but I'm not sure if they mean conceptually indivisible or physically indivisible.

This distinction is also reflected in dictionaries, e.g. dictionary.com has these in its first two definitions:

State consciousness:

"the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc."

Contents of consciousness:

"the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people"

The article offers some neurological findings about the connection between the two. State consciousness is thought to be linked closely to the 'thalamo-cortical' circuits:

Our conscious state is thought to depend on the activity of so-called ‘thalamo-cortical’ circuits..... Thalamocortical circuits are thought to be the target of general anesthesia, and damage to these neurons due to tumors or stroke often results in coma.

Whereas the content is thought to depend on the cortex:

...functional brain imaging studies locate the contents of consciousness mostly within the cortex, in ‘cortico-cortical’ circuits.

And they are linked, and this is the new bit:

Aru and colleagues believe that L5p neurons are uniquely placed to bridge the divide.

So the punchline is that there is an anatomical connection between the neurology of state-consciousness and content-consciousness.

I have no problem with the science of all this. What they are calling state-consciousness I suspect includes an assumed phenomenal consciousness but also includes observable arousal levels. In this thread I am concerned phenomenal consciousness, which is much closer to the concept of state-consciousness than content-consciousness.

The difficulty I have is, again, conceptual. First, the neuroscientists have found correlations between brain function and (assumed or reported) experience and arousal levels. That doesn't tell us what the relationship consists in, it only tells us there is a reliable relationship. The relationship between legs and walking is clear, the latter is what the former does. But in the case of experience and brain function it is not so clear what verb we should use (e.g. 'is', 'realises', 'gives rise to', 'produces', 'instantiates' 'manufactures', 'entails', 'causes', 'encodes', etc etc...). Secondly, consideration is not given to the conceptual difference between the self and consciousness. What, phenomenologically, is the difference between x losing consciousness, and x ceasing to exist (where x is defined functionally)? As far as I can tell, there's no difference. No experience either way. It is conceptually less problematic to suppose that, under anaesthesia, the self is dissolved, even though we speak of 'losing consciousness'. I can argue why that is less problematic in another post.

So that's the first of the two articles I'll look at. I do another one from @Nickolasgaspar's list when i get a mo.

I classify phenomenal consciousness as a mental process. That's the kind of a thing I say it is. The category I say it belongs in. One of the characteristics of a mental processes is that they are behaviors or at least that they manifest themselves to us as behaviors.

If it's not a mental process, what kind of a thing is it? What category does it fit in? — T Clark

That's an interesting question. Lets have a run through of the obvious possibilities (some of which may overlap):

- substance
- matter/field
- entity/object (persistent behaviour of a field)
- property (x-ness)
- process
- action/behaviour
- function
...any others?

You can define it by fiat however you want, but that risks going off topic. The dictionary definition I gave in the OP is arguably compatible with any of these options. I vote 'property'. That fits most naturally with language as well.

We know by analogy. We know what our experience feels like, how it makes us act. It would be silly for us not to interpret other people's similar behavior as something other than the same type of experience we have.

I'm sympathetic to the argument from analogy, but I know some find it unconvincing.

Much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness.

That may well be true of us-as-human. But the behaviour we don't drive might be driven by the consciousness of other entities.

That’s because consciousness is a property of organisms, which are a great deal more than brains and nervous systems. Sapiens, for example, have digestive, endocrine, skeletal, respiratory and other systems. Each of these are required for human consciousness. — NOS4A2

Humans are, indeed, required for human consciousness. What is required for rock consciousness? A rock?

I would say that consciousness causes (some) behaviour, not that (some) behaviour is consciousness. As I mentioned before, I can think many things that I never "manifest" in behaviour. — Michael

I broadly agree. Some (forget the name of the guy I'm thinking of) say that there are no absolutely private facts about your experience. They say it is in principle (even if we don't yet have the tech) to access all the facts about your experience by examining brain function. However the guy I'm thinking of (I'll find who it is) says that nevertheless, there are two ways of accessing these facts. Of course, I think this 'two ways' is just another acknowledgement of privacy. My way of accessing my experience is private, even if I can't ultimately keep a secret in the face of a mind-scanner.

Sorry, everyone, I'm still catching up. I'm only on page 5. I'll probably be jumping around a bit.

There are many papers that explains how personal experiences arise from brain function, how pathology, physical injury and intoxication/physical condition can affect their quality and how we are able to diagnose and repair problematic states of consciousness. — Nickolasgaspar

Yes, every position on consciousness, including the most woo of the magic woo ones involving invisible ghostly ectoplasm and cosmic fairies, all understand that alterations to brain function affect what we experience. Of course they do. No one denies that. Getting drunk affects what we experience, as does getting hit in the head, as does receiving sensory input of any kind, etc etc. The issue is how does the capacity to experience anything at all get there in the first place. That's the contested bit. One way to bring out this distinction is to contrast consciousness simpliciter, with what we are conscious of.

The problem is NOT just with your questions but your previous answers which allow me to guess your intention behind those questions. — Nickolasgaspar

Please no guessing! It's hard enough when we try and respond to what people actually say. If we start talking to what we think are people's hidden motives it'll be absolute chaos.

Correct, why questions are a slippery slope for...getting back in bed with Aristotelian teleology and enabling the pollution of our epistemology. — Nickolasgaspar

'Why' questions aren't always about teleology. They just ask for an explanation of some kind. We're not going to be able to have a conversation if every time I ask "why such and such" you say I'm looking for a teleological (or even just evolutionary) explanation. What I'm asking for in this thread is an explanation in terms of physical processes. Similar to the question I'd ask of a mechanic with my car "Why won't my car start?" I'm not looking for the answer "Because it's sulking and doesn't want to drive through a puddle and get its tyres all wet." Nor am I looking for the answer "Because the designer of the car designed it to stop working after 100,000 miles so you have to buy a new one." I'm looking for an answer in terms of the structure and function of the car. It's odd that you impute this intention to seek teleological answers to Chalmers as well.

Why would I be special as member of the same species? — Marchesk

That's an interesting argument for other minds. A subject for another thread perhaps.

I cannot make sense of a complaint that a question has not been answered for which the complainant cannot provide any clue as to what the answer would look like. It seems to me to be an essential ground for knowing the question hasn't been answered. Otherwise, maybe it has, who knows? — Isaac

I'd like to be able to provide you with some answer. I can't, I don't think. What I can do is say something else which might help. The word 'produce' has been used a few times in the thread so I'll go with that for now. Consider:

a) Consciousness is produced by a brain (or at least a body with a brain in it)
b) The universe was produced by an eternal cosmic unicorn that spewed forth quarks and what-have-you from it's horn.

Obviously, (a) is a serious claim and (b) is ludicrous. However, I actually find (b) more intelligible in a way. I can sort of imagine it. We have a physical unicorn, a structure which does things, producing more structure which in turn does more stuff. The producer is broadly the same kind of thing as the product. (a) on the other hand, I can't even get my head around. The producer is so different from the product it seems impossible that they are the same kind of thing. But maybe that's my failing.

I wonder if we could usefully do an analyisis of 'levels' of possibility, and what trumps what.

Logical impossibility, e.g. (- (a & -a))
trumps
Conceptual impossiblity (possibly including linguistic impossibility, e.g. I can't be both a bachelor and married)
trumps
Empirical impossibility (can't go faster than the speed of light)
trumps
Technological impossibility (can't build a dyson sphere - but perhaps could be overcome in time)
trumps
Epistemic impossibility (it may be possible but we can't know how - perhaps this doesn't fit neatly in the list)

I don't think I've done a good job of that at all, others may be able to tidy that up, but you get the idea. I'm sure there must be a SEP article dealing with this stuff. @Banno? @fdrake?

EDIT: Here we go:

Sentences (1)–(10) instantiate different kinds of modality. (1–3) are most naturally interpreted to be about metaphysical modality; (4) about logical modality, (5) about conceptual modality, (6) about epistemic modality, (7) about physical modality, (8) about technological modality, and (9–10) about practical modality. — SEP

So, for me at least, the unicorn creator would be conceptually possible, but empirically impossible, knowing what we do about the world from our scientific investigations.

The idea of consciousness arising from brains seems logically possible, but, at least for me, it gets stuck at the conceptual stage. So the science of it doesn't even get off the ground, as conceptual impossibility trumps that. But of you don't find any conceptual issues, them perhaps it does become a scientific matter, and neuroscience gets traction.

EDIT: So maybe I can give you an answer. What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.

It doesn't seem objectively unreasonable to me that physical processing should give rise to a rich inner life. It seems clear to me that it can and it does. Note I said "clear," not "obvious" or "established." I certainly could be wrong. I look for reasons why it should seem unreasonable to others and I can come up with two answers. 1) Cognitive scientists seem to be a long way from identifying the neurological mechanisms that manifest as experience. I'm not really sure how true that is, but I don't think it's a good reason. 2) People just can't imagine how something so spectacular, important, and intimate as what it is like to be us could just be something mechanical. — T Clark

Thanks, that's interesting. I've taken the liberty of bolding a few of the words in there. I want to make a list of verbs that have been used to characterise the relationship between consciousness and a physical system. Perhaps as the basis for another thread, I could do a poll maybe.

As to the substance of what you say:
1) This perhaps is related to arguments from ignorance. I've been told that's what I'm doing several times, and that might be right. Maybe I just haven't read enough neuroscience. Maybe I lack faith in the scientific method which, after all, is easily the best method we have had so far in our history at arriving at reliable/true/useful theories about the world. Philosophy, which again has been pointed out to me many times, it completely fucking hopeless by comparison. Having said all that, the issues seem to me to be conceptual rather than empirical. Sometimes scientists need philosophers to help them out a bit with the concepts (yeah that's patronising, I don't care. Just as philosophers are often shit at science, scientists are often shit at philosophy too). One example of an important conceptual matter is the idea that consciousness does not, conceptually, seem to admit of borderline cases. Another example is the separation of different senses of 'consciousness', which Chalmers apparently does as you've quoted. Lexicographers also have a role to play here in clarifying what it is people actually use the word for. Maybe hard-bitten neuroboffins on the one hand and fairy woo-mongers on the other are talking about different things and are failing to actually disagree.

2) That may be true of some, but I don't think it's true of many philosophers. People like Brian Cox and Dawkins make much of this point - going on and on about how the wonders of the natural world are not diminished by their physical basis. I think it basically a straw man, no serious woo-mongers actually make this point.

And of course the mind, and in particular experience, isn't just something mechanical, just the operation of the nervous system, any more than life is just chemistry. The mind emerges out of neurology. The mind operates according to different rules than our nervous system. We call the study of the mind "psychology." I don't have any problem conceiving of that, even though I don't understand the mechanisms by which it could happen. — T Clark

(Collecting my list of verbs again) OK, so you're a non-reductionist about the mind. That's obviously fine but it creates a problem. If mind isn't just the operation of a nervous system, what is it? A simple unsophisticalted identification (the simplest way to be a physicalist) between neural activity and consciousness is no longer an option. One option is to take a hierarchical systems approach, saying that whole systems and sub-systems have properties unique to each 'level' and these have upward and downward causation powers, and that various components of mind, including consciousness, is somehow captured with these concepts. I think @apokrisis thinks something along these lines (no doubt I have got it wrong somewhat wrong).

If there are other reasons for rejecting a neurological basis for phenomenal consciousness, you haven't provided it. You've only really found fault with reasons why scientists say there is one. Your argument is primarily a matter of language, not science.

Sure, but it depends what you're looking for. I don't have a falsification. For example, I can't take @Nickolasgaspar's theory, use it to make a prediction, and then make an observation that falsifies that prediction. So if that's what you want from a critique, I can't offer that. One thing philosophers can offer is a mapping of the theoretical landscape, so the broad options are all clearly visible, and the pros and cons of each laid out. Then we can provisionally pick one as a result of an abductive inference. The joke I don't get tired of repeating is taken from Churchill: "Panpsychism is the worst theory of consciousness apart from all the others." The idea here is roughly that one of three options must be true: eliminativism, panpsychism or emergence. We pick the least problematic.

As for the function issue, we're not really talking about brain function, we're talking about mind function. I'm positing that not neurological function but neurological mechanism and process are the basis of mind function.

Don't quite follow that bit.

I think most would agree that phenomenal consciousness is a valuable mental resource and capability.

Sure, absolutely. As a panpsychist I go much further, and assert that any behaviour at all, including the behaviour of atoms, is valuable for the mind of the atom. Everything happens because of consciousness. I've been toying with the idea that all causation is actually psychological. We move about and do things because of how we feel. So do atoms and molecules and everything else. That's not to say mechanism doesn't exist. Just to say that mechanism is derivative of will, and a macro-effect supervening on lots of things all doing what they want. @Banno mentioned the difficulties with the concept of physical causation and linked to the SEP article, for which I was grateful. I need to read that more and reflect. The whole idea is a bit of a switcheroo.

Have to stop there, back to work for me. Thanks for interesting post.

I'll pick two at random then.

What do you think of Tononi's IIT? I read that one. He's a neuroscientist.

Can you state in you own words how the brain generates consciousness?