Welcome!

What do you think of Trump?

Who said anything about minds being brains?

I was asked for "that aspect of [myself] which visually perceives imagined phenomena". I presented it. Those areas of my brain are the aspects of myself which perceive imagined phenomena. It's an fMRI of someone imagining a scene.

My hand is the aspect of myself which holds teacups. It's not a particularly complicated question. — Isaac

So minds and brains are different? What are the differences?

If minds are brains (and I presume you think mental states are brain states) why are only some parts of the brain conscious?

In an infinitely large multiverse of a certain kind, there are going to be worlds like ours, but where extreme statistical flukes are the norm. Suppose we're one of those worlds. Suppose that we have all the physical laws completely wrong, it's just that our instruments, through some bizarre effect like quantum tunneling, keep giving us the same supposedly accurate results, but these results are actually completely wrong. For example, the Andromeda galaxy might really just be a light year away, but all our measurements just keep being off by the exact same amount year after year (along with measurements that underpin our understanding of all the natural laws we think we know). How could we ever be sure we're not in one of those statistically fluky worlds?

Also, since there would be an infinite amount of these improbable worlds and an infinite amount of "normal" worlds, and countable infinite sets are the same size, how could you make a probabilistic argument that you're not in the set of improbable worlds? If both sets are the same size, and you didn't know which set you belonged to, isn't it equally likely you could be a member of either set?

But the times, they are a changin'. — Wayfarer

They really are. I'm liking this younger generation of philosophers.

But none of it matters to Dennett and his readers. They are sufficiently motivated by the fear of spooky woo stuff that they'd prefer to accept it. — Wayfarer

It took a long time for me to ditch the materialist mindset. For me, the biggest obstacle was feeling like a fool for taking "woo"ish things seriously.

So do you reckon if you'd been the other party in that wager with David Chalmers you'd have won the bet? — Wayfarer

Consciousness was already explained years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained

But apparently, the REAL solution to the hard problem is Bosnian Semiotics. Or something like that.


Let's talk about feels and how and why they're generated and whether machines have them/can have them. You brave enough for a little Q&A?

I can also see other's minds from the outside. — T Clark

Well, you can see their behaviors. Their inner experiences (or lack thereof) are out of reach. Do other people see red the way I see green? Who knows.

Why do you assume people that come here don't have any say in the matter? You're assuming in your anti-natalist view that souls (disembodied minds, if idealism is true) don't exist.

Also: we can only go by our memories to determine whether things make sense. It's possible the universe makes no sense, but we are given false memories of a past where everything seems to make sense. That begs the question that the thing giving us false memories has to make some kind of sense itself.

ETA: But what if our false memories are the result of a fantastically improbable sequence of events?

It looks to me as if life in the universe is a fluke, despite the fact that we happen to be in a location where we notice life all around us. — wonderer1

The odds of the universe supporting any life at all are fantastically improbable. This is a good article:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#ExamPhys

I found this interesting:

"Is there a God or a multiverse? Does modern cosmology force us to choose? Is it the case that the apparent fine-tuning of constants and forces to make the universe just right for life means there is either a need for a "tuner" or else a cosmos in which every possible variation of these constants and forces exists somewhere?

This choice has provoked anxious comment in the pages of this week's New Scientist. It follows an article in Discover magazine, in which science writer Tim Folger quoted cosmologist Bernard Carr: "If you don't want God, you'd better have a multiverse."

Even strongly atheistic physicists seem to believe the choice is unavoidable. Steven Weinberg, the closest physics comes to a Richard Dawkins, told the eminent biologist: "If you discovered a really impressive fine-tuning ... I think you'd really be left with only two explanations: a benevolent designer or a multiverse."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2008/dec/08/religion-philosophy-cosmology-multiverse#:~:text=It%20follows%20an%20article%20in,d%20better%20have%20a%20multiverse.%22

Taking off my idealist hat, I agree: either there's a sufficiently large multiverse (of the right kind), or there's god(s). Or there's been an endless Big Bang->Big Crunch. The odds that this single universe would be a life-supporting one are just too fantastical to take seriously the idea that we got lucky.

A counter to that line of thinking is that we wouldn't be here to wonder about it all if we hadn't been lucky, and we're here, so we got lucky, so what's the big deal? But that doesn't hold up. Leslie's Firing Squad analogy counters that objection.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Nave-html/Faithpathh/Leslie.html

Today, some quantum physicists and mathematicians (noted in post above) openly admit to some form of Panpsychism worldview. — Gnomon

Quantum Bayesian is really out there. Consciousness is all the rage these days.

The feeling of being a self in its world by being a prediction machine with its collection of interpretive habits. — apokrisis

How is that feeling generated from non-feeling matter? Why is there a feeling at all? Why is there a feeling associated with some brain processes but not others? Doesn't the regulation of hormones and digestion, to give two examples, involve prediction and habituation? Could that feeling be generated in machines? How would you test whether an alien species has this feeling?

One of the more powerful arguments Dennett (I think it's Dennett) makes is that we are wrong about consciousness in the same way that an ancient Greek is wrong that, when standing still, he's not moving through space at an incredible speed, and that given enough time, we will realize we are just as in error about what consciousness is.

Come on, read what he said! ::snaps fingers:: pay attention! What's wrong with you?

Which philosopher and/or paper most closely matches your view on consciousness?

You (supposedly) have discussions with luminaries yet you can't answer the most basic of questions and hide behind jargon. This is a philosophy forum (nay, THEphilosophyforum). Put your ideas out there!

Are you an eliminativist? Do you think ChatGpt is conscious?

Hence, if a robot or computer program can report on inputs – with Chat GTP as one example of this - it is then as conscious as anything else.

...

Apo is an eliminativist who deems all speak of first-person awareness and, hence, of consciousness to be a linguistic social construct devoid of real referent(s). — javra

You're making Apo sound like an idiot! No offense to either of you, of course.



Are you an eliminativist?

Apo thinks:

A system, typically a brain, is conscious iff it creates a model of it's environment it uses to make predictions. Consciousness is the action or function of doing this. — bert1

That begs a lot of interesting questions about machine consciousness, yet so far I can't get Apo to byte on any of that. What's the big deal???

What's so hard to understand here?
— apokrisis

Your views — bert1

I see I'm not the only one.



Can you explain, in words of as few syllables as possible, what you think consciousness is?

What do you think of Koch losing his bet to Chalmers? Do you think Koch is ever going to win that bet (assuming he lives long enough)? — RogueAI

So get the story about "consciousness" right and all the more interesting scientific questions start to flow. — apokrisis

When do you think that will happen?

If you call being qualified to speak to the OP a problem, then you’re probably right. I’m probably the only one to have discussed all this with Chalmers, Koch, Friston, etc. — apokrisis

What do you think of Koch losing his bet to Chalmers? Do you think Koch is ever going to win that bet (assuming he lives long enough)?

At best, consciousness = attention + reporting. — apokrisis

Can machines be conscious?

At best, consciousness = attention + reporting. A jumping spider has something that is primitively like what we would call attentional processing. But it doesn’t speak so can’t report or introspect. — apokrisis

Speaking and/or reporting are necessary conditions for consciousness and/or introspection??? Is a jumping spider conscious or not?

A newborn cannot speak or report. Is it conscious?

If you call being qualified to speak to the OP a problem, then you’re probably right. I’m probably the only one to have discussed all this with Chalmers, Koch, Friston, etc. — apokrisis

OK, Mr. I'm-so-qualified :razz: Riddle me this:

According to your theory of mind/consciousness, are insects conscious? Do they have minds?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-surprisingly-sophisticated-mind-of-an-insect/

And keep your answer as free from jargon as possible, for all the stupid people here. Good philosophy is clear and concise.

If you're having problems with multiple people here, perhaps the problem is not the other people?

Then there are the groups that remain in the pre-woke shadows, like working class white men--a group that has historically been discounted. The plight of workers in general isn't prominent, and it will probably be a cold day in hell before public media gives extended attention to the exploitation of the working class by the predatory rich. One rarely hears much about the history of organized labor, unions, unionization, or corporate and legislative efforts to block unionization. — BC

I can't back up what I'm saying with stats, but my impression of NPR from listening to it while driving home is that they have given quite a bit of airtime to efforts to unionize Amazon "fulfilment" centers and Starbucks. NPR also covers the opioid crisis more than the other liberal news outlets, imo.

Yeah, materialism does seem to entail it.

It's the obvious and PR loaded reasons for the change. their 'racist guilt'. — BC

Isn't it possible they want to highlight historically underrepresented groups and correct an unfairness that has been the status quo for a very long time?

The good thing about both IIT and GNWT is that they take experience as something real. This is what Strawson called a physicalist realist position. Some continue to deny conscious experience as real — the Eliminativists. But Koch, Tononi and others don’t agree with this most silly of conclusions. It shows the degree to which the physicalist dogma can force some into extreme philosophical or metaphysical positions.

How people ever talked themselves into something as nonsensical as eliminativism, I'll never understand, but thankfully it's well on its way to the ash heap of history.

It just goes to show you that even though the MAGA base is fiercely loyal to Trump if he diverges too far from their core values or beliefs they will boo him and voice their disapproval. — GRWelsh

Yes, if anyone shows even a modicum of intelligence and/or compassion, except for the "plight" of white people, they become persona non grata.

As for asking God for $100 to put on a horse in the fifth race at Pimlico... there's a whole branch of Christianity that works at that - prosperity gospel. — T Clark

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/09/trump-prosperity-gospel-same-lie-neither-christians-grace-column/2835189001/

It figures that if Trump were aligned with any faith, it would be prosperity gospel.

Sending people positive mental energy (praying for them) is never a bad thing. It's pretty egotistical to think you can bend God to your will, but it's also an unselfish act. Praying for oneself, however...that's kind of selfish. What the prayerful person should do is use the mental energy praying to introspect and lead a better life, and maybe good things will happen.

What do you think of this?

"Microorganisms demonstrate conscious-like intelligent behaviour, and this form of consciousness may have emerged from a quantum mediated mechanism as observed in cytoskeletal structures like the microtubules present in nerve cells which apparently have the architecture to quantum compute. This paper hypothesises the emergence of proto-consciousness in primitive cytoskeletal systems found in the microbial kingdoms of archaea, bacteria and eukarya. To explain this, we make use of the Subject-Object Model (SOM) of consciousness which evaluates the rise of the degree of consciousness to conscious behaviour in these systems supporting the hypothesis of emergence and propagation of conscious behaviour during the pre-Cambrian part of Earth's evolutionary history. Consciousness as proto-consciousness or sentience computed via primitive cytoskeletal structures substantiates as a driver for the intelligence observed in the microbial world during this period ranging from single-cellular to collective intelligence as a means to adapt and survive. The growth in complexity of intelligence, cytoskeletal system and adaptive behaviours are key to evolution, and thus supports the progression of the Lamarckian theory of evolution driven by quantum mediated proto-consciousness to consciousness as described in the SOM of consciousness."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29254105/#:~:text=Abstract,the%20architecture%20to%20quantum%20compute.

Are microorganisms conscious? What do you think of the "Subject-Object Model (SOM) of consciousness"?

Our Bayesian models of the world include the construction of the self within the model as the necessary "other" of this world. — apokrisis

Does anything that produces/utilizes a "Bayesian model of the world" have a self and/or consciousness? Also, why do some brain processes involve consciousness while others don't?

:100:

What about when we ascribe adjectives to our mind? Are we in error when we do that?

I would define "mind" as the sum total of an entities mental processes which include thinking, feeling, perceiving, knowing, remembering, being aware, being self-aware, proprioception, and lots of stuff I'm leaving out. I think all of those things are observable from the outside (third person observation) and many are observable from the inside (introspection). — T Clark

So mind is a thing, not a process? Or both?