So, while DNA most likely evolved via Random processes, any meaning encoded in the chemistry is a product of Selection, which implements Intention.

Selection determinator can be passive and inanimate against some dynamics, like A shaped roof selects which raindrops go to one or the other side. So evolutionary selector can be amount of light, heat, acidity... stuff like that.

If there is an intention behind it all we should find out when we die, but until then I don't see the point to jump in any kind of god-like conclusion since it brings more questions than it answers.

There is speculation about this, but no one yet knows how DNA came about. Those who brush aside this problem and its larger question are bending truth.

What do you mean? I mean there is no randomness in chemistry. H and O will form H2O and never H3O2 or H4O5. And when water forms snowflakes, they are all "random", but nevertheless none fail to become a beautiful crystal pattern. There are strict rules and limited possibilities, and the atoms actively seek to form those possibilities. There is repulsion and attraction precisely determining what can go where and what has to go elsewhere, atoms don't just bang around at random and stick to whatever they hit.

First, I am surprised that anything exists at all. Second, I am surprised that what exists experiences itself as existing and wonders what it is. To me, this is astonishing.

It's maddening.

“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
― Alan Watts

Very interesting! May I refer you to my thread, "The significance of meaning" which asks if DNA could be the result of random events?

It was hardly random once ecosystem settled into stable cycles, then chemical affinity to spontaneously form lipids and self-replicating polymers make DNA and the rest of evolution rather inevitable.

The mystery is not random chance, but chemical affinity and predestination - the possibility of DNA has apparently been built in the properties of subatomic particles since the beginning of time.

It is communicated as a concept. Black to white grayscale is a simple concept of linear variable, brightness varies from 0 to 255 for example. So then RGB frame for color concept is combination of three such variables: Red, Green, Blue. But it might not be a simple combination, don't know.

Yes, I'm trying to clarify what your objection is.

My objection? To what point of yours when you made no point, but keep asking questions?

Do you have any point to make, what is it?

I'm talking about objective existence, the 'context' in which we determine existence is subjective, it's a decision we make, there's no reason why we should determine objects on any given level of heirachy.

The reason for separation are new emergent entities, properties, and meanings. So we can talk about things like wetness and acidity, or letters and words, or ball and wheel, or osmosis and chirality... Subjective, perhaps, so what? Decision is not arbitrary.

We're we justifiably uncertain of our existence prior to having a model of molecules, cells etc?

I don't see how that question relates to what I said. What problem you are talking about - who has that problem, when, why?

How would our alien, who only senses weak nuclear forces, have any concept of a boundary at a cellular level?

In that case it wouldn't.

OK, so describe to me where 'you' end, and why there. Maybe some more detail will help me see where you're coming from.

Individual organisms are distinguished from the environment by connections and relations between entities that make up that organism, like shared circulatory system, synchronized motion of all the parts, shape constraints that make up the body...

I'm asking what features of 'my' actions allow you to distinguish them from actions caused by 'the forces of nature'.

Autonomy & independence, like you can climb a mountain and raindrop can not. Is there some point to all these questions?

Every atom, occupies a different location in space from every other, so that alone doesn't provide any grounds, nit to mention the fact that 3d space seems to be a model which itself is open to question.

That's not the context where you exist as a collective entity. You need to look several levels of abstraction above... atom - molecule - cell - organ - organism. Surely at this level there should be no confusion what is and how much it is different and separated from everything else at the same level.

Which are 'the forces of nature' and which are my movements, prior to identifying me as an entity?

Can you state the problem directly, with some example if possible?

Give me an reason why they would still recognise you as one thing and me as another. Or even you as one thing and the chair you're sitting on as another.

Because you occupy different location in space, and especially because you seem to move infependently from the forces of nature. I guess I could say then, because you seem unnatural.

Phenomenology isn't directly concerned with empirical sciences or the naturalistic attitude.

It's like you are saying you'd rather keep imagining than look through a telescope. Is it not the ultimate goal to actually move, if possible, any and all "phenomena" from philosophy to one of natural sciences?

We usualy get born with two eyes and one nose. With the help then of the sense of touch, perhaps that's sufficient to derive everything else in the Platonic realm of geometry and math, and who knows what else is there.

We cannot measure subjectivity by objective means.

If all is just electro-magnetic chemistry, that is 'material' in a sense it is measurable, then all we need is true definition. Right? For example, if definition of 'subjectivity' turns out to be "measure of self-reflection" then we would look for some kind of dynamics which is symmetric in some way, and compare one side with the other to see how closely they match, or "self-reflect". For example.

And the definition of consciousness is: "act of self-observation".
- Zelebg
FWIW, I think feedback loops and self-reference are necessary, but not sufficient, to produce consciousness. Again Koch's book gets into the details of how that works

Then the answer has to be behind the meaning of the word "observation". And I hate one of quantum mechanics most senseless interpretations actually makes full sense here, namely 'wave function collapse' as a consequence of observation.

That we converged to this point from widely separated fields of natural investigation is not insignificant. But how funny if this turned out to be the answer we could then perhaps even be able to read thoughts and watch dreams. We would know how it works, but we would still not really know why, and I am afraid that would again leave us feeling the mystery was not actually solved at all.

There is something about emotions that makes them closer to thinking than sensing. It's like feeling desire is closer to thinking 2+2=4 than tasting sour, even though we say to 'feel' both sensations and emotions.

Of course both emotions and thoughts originate 'inside' while sensations from 'outside', but is there more to this similarity. Do we think we feel, maybe we feel we think, or feel we feel, or think we think? What is the difference between thoughts and emotions?

For me that is a contradiction of terms because 'thought' necessarily requires 'feeling'/'emotions'.

I don't see why, but I see the opposite is true. I would say there is no emotion and no sensation without thought. I can imagine suddenly existing in a completely empty universe, inspecting myself and thinking how I don't feel any emotion or sensation, and I would still be conscious of that state I'm in.

I can not imagine sensory signals or inner emotions to have any meaning or 'reality' in their intended context without some kind of understanding or appreciation that sensation or emotion is actually own.

As far as I'm concerned you need to 'feel' to be conscious, and you need a body to 'feel'. Ergo you cannot have a 'computed consciousness' and compare it to human consciousness.

Is it not actually possible to put people in a state where they can not feel anything and yet are still conscious? In other words, what exactly is wrong with completely being unaware of your feelings/emotions and still be conscious of your thoughts only?

Consciousness itself is a relatively ambiguous term so if you start extending it to items like oranges, rocks, trees or cats, then we're going to start to disagree about the technical use of 'consciousness' very quickly.

If someone said to me their robot is sentient, I don't see any other way to settle the matter but to question the subjectivness or qualia of robot's awareness/experience. And if they showed me what I showed you, I would have no argument and would have to agree with them.

This may not point to anything about what consciousness is and how it actually works, but I think it then at least points to where further distinctions need to be made. Only, I do not see where.

Zelebg In my view analogies help bring together sets of ideas. Here you don't really have any ideas and have just used an analogy to make the loose idea appear more substantial - you've not succeeded with me.

Then I think you might enjoy this problem, it can not get more concrete than this. Below is a personal computer hardware configuration for which I claim is conscious, self-aware, and free willing. And the definition of consciousness is: "act of self-observation".

1. Camera A: visual input extern -> feeds into 2.
2. Program A: subconsciousness & memory -> feeds into 3.
3. Display A: visual output inner -> feeds into 4.
4. Camera B: visual input inner -> feeds into 5.
5. Program B: cognition & free will -> feeds into 6.& 2.
6. Speaker: audio output extern

First, and most importantly, is there anything here that contradicts empirical knowledge? And then everything else, like is there any logical or even just intuition based contradiction here?

Some have postulated that the brain works like an antenna to receive transmissions from out in the ether.

I think I only heard Rupert Sheldrake mention something among the lines to facilitate absorbtion of collective memory in his morphic resonance theory. Is there any other referrence to "antenna" in relation to mind or sentience you know of?

Christoph Koch on Consciousness

Great, thank you.

How about I say consciousness is a type of 'receiver', something where output information from cognition, sensations and emotions gets "in", either externally induced from the environment, or internally from the memory.

And what if I say consciousness is not a result of some computation or any kind of process, but immediate effect phenomena like reflection in a mirror or raindrops splashes.

Now the only alternative remains consciousness is not really actualized right there and then, in our head, but instead the information is transmitted somewhere else, perhaps eventually being projected on some kind of screen for amusement to our reptilian shapeshifting alien overlords, or god, or even maybe our own ghosts. I think now I narrowed it down.

I do not see what's so perplexing aside from it perplexes me to see people keep talking like that...

What did I miss?

The same thing you missed when I said in another thread: "any experience is necesarilly subjective experience", and you disagreed without given explanation or example. You are missing the 'subjectiveness' of the experience. It is that "I" in "I think, therefore I am", and the only concept directly implied and necessary real.

By taking account of our own thought and belief and it's effect/affects upon ourselves including our subsequent attitudes and behaviour.

That's just behaviour. Where do you see the difference then between a human and robot awareness?

"Why ought" is not the right question at all.

Perhaps taking careful consideration of both the physical and the non physical aspects of all experience would be helpful?

What do you mean?

How is that the brain generates the private subjective world of the self and then for what purpose?

I would phrase it like this: Brain generates cognition, sensation, and emotion. How can "self" experience those feelings and thoughts? For what purpose? What is "self"?

The purpose of sentience or consciousness is so our brain can learn, which is how we "make choices". In other words, the purpose is so we can have "free will".

That's about as broad and accurate a definition as there can be. The main issue is how we then unpack what this means and what use it is to us to say so.

Word "sum" narrows down some of it and can inspire some quite specific ideas, like this: consciousness, or a function of it, is kind of a loom integrating all the cognitive, sensory and emotional threads and vawing them into the memory as a single unified tapestry of experiences.

More interesting and better analogy, however, is an antenna, since it can both encode and decode, i.e. memory-store & memory-recall. Thought of having an antenna in your head may be disturbing, but the concept is concrete and functionally specific, so we can properly investigate and maybe even predict some consequences for empirical testing.

Thanks. Is there some site where I could find recent papers on the subject free to download?

Consciousness - on my view - is the ability to draw correlations between different things. It begins simply and accrues in it's complexity according to the content of the correlations.

"Ability to draw correlations between different things", is that not the same thing as intelligence?

In any case, it's only functional description, not ontological, unless you are suggesting these "relations" somehow exist as actual, causal phenomena, and it just so happens they have this property to be conscious.

Our difference seems to be regarding what counts as warrant for concluding that the animal has a sense of fairness.

I suppose you don't mean each disposition and emotion has its own sense, like that of touch and smell, but is there anything actually contradicting that notion?

And how about consciousness itself is actually a sense like taste or hearing, sixth sense as they say in Buddhism. Is there anything we know that can prevent this for actually being true?

That our sensory input does not reflect true reality is separate problem from ontology of the subjectiveness of experience.

Yes, but the existence of phenomenal consciousness is a trivialism within the worldview (that I have) that of course pigs and cows and rats experience pain and of course machines can be conscious, if they have the right functionality to do so (which pigs and cows and rats and humans clearly do).

How can possibly a computer have 'functionality' which could explain 'subjectiveness' of the experience?

What It Is Like To Experience X?

The question is not complete, it should go like this:

What it's like for Y to Experience X?

And let's get specific:

What it's like for a human(Y) and a dog(Y) to experience taste(X) and desire(X)? Clearly that missing Y may very easily be the determining factor in describing how it is to experience X, and X may very well be the same in all cases.

But what is this Y all of a sudden and how could have conversation about it make sense without it? Don't know about the second part, but as for the first: Y is "experiencer", the "self", it's the "subjective" in the phrase "subjective experience" that defines 'qualia' and what 'sentience' means. Because the only one kind of experience is subjective experience.

Hard problem of consciousness. I say this self-awareness, i.e. qualia, i.e. sentience, i.e. consciousness, is about hardware and interface, rather than software and signal encoding. In any case there is nothing similar in entire human knowledge that could fit here and explain this _subjective_ phenomena, it has no parallel in any of our sciences, except science fiction. Seriously, some kind of "dream" of the type 'Total Recall' or 'The Matrix' are the only kind of mechanics we know of that could, at least in principle, address this problem.

Not on my view...

I would argue experience necessarily must be subjective experience, and subjective experience I think implies the subject which is "self", i.e. self-awareness. So for example, to make computer consciouss and experience emotions or smells, all we have to do is give it self-awareness and appropriate sensors.

Being conscious is having/forming thought and belief.

But if there is a thought without "self" isn't that just the same as philosophical zombie or a computer?

Some. Not all.

I'm failing to find sense in experience happening to someone who is not aware the experience is their own. I'd say 'to experience' is the same thing as being conscious, and I also fail to see how consciousness makes sense without self-awareness.

Is experience possible without self-awareness?

consciousness = awareness

Is awareness not just a sum of all inner feelings and external sensations?

color, sound, feeling = qualia

Is there a fundamental difference betwee feeling taste or smell, and feeling joy or desire?

consciousness and qualia are two sides of the same coin

What do you mean?

Is there nothing we can say about it? Is it process, succession of separate events? Is it feeling, sensation? Can we not even say yes or no to those questions?

I'm insisting you know what a conviction is.

I asked you, but if you insist then I am convinced. I feel that I know conviction is an emotion. And now you know too. Fantastic!

Pain is pain, but is also a sensation. Joy is joy, but is also a feeling. Now, I see you are insisting conviction is conviction, but what I asked you is it also a feeling or not, is it also maybe a sensation or not, is it anything besides 'conviction'. Do you understand?

I agree with that, but then what is conviction: feeling, sensation, experience, understanding, illussion... what is conviction?

We have a couple of good ideas about how life came about, though we cannot decide on a specific one with certainty. We aren't clueless about it.

I'm talking about something else. We have a clue how it works, but not why. We see innate affinity of lipids to spontaneously form membranes, we understand their properties and thus laws dictating this dynamics, but why these lipids exist in the first place, why are they even possible, that's the mystery.

It's only 'fine tuning' mystery if we on top of that assume those chemical possibilities are there due to exactly defined constants and laws for precisely that, but this assumption is irrelevant as it can not solve the original mystery it is derived from.

Apperantly there is a huge landscape of possibilities woven into only a few constant numbers. It's like question "why is there something rather than nothing", only worse, since this 'something' not only exists already, but also has this weird built-in affinity to make itself alive and conscious.

It only sounds like the work of an intelligent agent if we apply the Copernican principle. If we apply the anthropic principle, the mystery entirely disappears. The universe is made for us because we live in it, not the other way round.

The mystery only disappears if we ignore larger mystery this little mystery is riding on, and the big mystery is emergence of consciousness and life from inanimate matter, regardless of how fine tuned or not we may imagine the universe might be.

Fine tuning concept only exists because we think most of the values given to those constants and laws would result in something unable to facilitate life or even sustain any kind of compounds of matter. But we don't know if it is even possible for those numbers to be different, and we can't even solve completely deterministic 3-body problem. We simply have no idea, and best of all it doesn't matter.

Suppose whatever arbitrary numbers are used to define those constants and laws, still we somehow end up with some kind of universe and some kind of sentient beings living in it. No more fine tuning mystery, but the mystery remains, and it's an old one everyone agrees we are clueless about - emergence of consciousness and life from inanimate matter, driven only through combinatorics of several particles with few simple properties. There is nothing anthropic about it, except that it's kind of wicked.