Consciousness

[Speakpigeon]

What if all of the natural world is a detailed simulation that allows us many ways of interacting with other consciousnesses?

Our brains could be part of the simulation that gives us direct access to our consciousnesses, rather than being the "direct cause" of our consciousnesses.

This is where things get silly. What's needed is a good application of Occam's Razor. Why make the problem more complex than the evidence before us? We have a mass of neurons that are capable of extremely complex interactions. Now let's say there is some way to connect to another dimension or natural process we have no clear conception of but is the origin of consciousness. Ok, but then you still need to explain what causes consciousness! It's just placing it conveniently beyond our capability of ever discovering or even asking anything about it. Kind of like the argument for God as "The Uncaused Cause". By definition it doesn't need an explanation. Unless you have some other source of evidence for such a theory it's pure woo.

Then pursue your argument to its logical conclusion which is that any theory of reality should explain why reality, the whole of it, i.e. not just our 13.7 billion-year old universe, exists in the first place.

There will always be something you won't be able to explain. To explain something is to explain it in terms of something else and if it's not to make a circular argument then it will produce an infinite regress, always leaving out an unexplained cause. Who ever told you it won't be like that?!

That being said, the question is not whether we can explain consciousness in terms of the objective world but whether we can explain the objective world and consciousness together in one unitary explanation. It's not clear yet which term you have to start from and whether it's even possible at all.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

As of today we don't have the slightest clue and really have nowhere to look to begin to even answer these questions.

We have no conception of how electrical impulses created by cells ends up as consciousness.

Which is exactly the same as saying we have no idea how a runner's electrical impulses created by cells ends up as speed.

Not the same thing at all. Electrical impulses come with the theory of electromagnatism, which comes with space-time and therefore speed whereas there's nothing in objective explanations of the physical world that even begin to look like a potential idea for explaining consciousness.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Do you experience consciousness?
I, myself, am a biological robot.
What I feel is what it is like to be a biological robot.

This is precisely what remains to be demonstrated...
EB

 

[untermensche]

We know what the brain is made out of, biological cells, and we know what kind of forces cells interact with, and we also know that if there were other forces or particles that could interact with brain cells, we would have detected them already. It's not a matter of not knowing what we don't know, it's a matter of knowing that we've eliminated the possibility.

No, it's just that the science of the brain may never explain consciousness. It's somewhat like restricting yourself to the rules of chess to explain a game of chess. There are no other rules allowed so you are tempted to explain the game with only the known rules yet the rules don't actually explain any particular game of chess.
EB

Understanding consciousness means identifying and understanding the specific processes that generate it.

It does not mean pointing to where it is generated.

Merely saying "brain processes" generate consciousness is a statement devoid of any explanation.

We are at the pointing stage of an understanding of consciousness.

Uggggg....brains.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Do you experience consciousness?
I, myself, am a biological robot.
What I feel is what it is like to be a biological robot.

And how do you know that?

Exactly.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

To say 'Robot' seems a bit harsh. Implying an inability to adapt to changing circumstances.

And how do you know that?

It is one way of looking at behavior.

All behavior is unconscious at the time of that behavior. (Libet, et al) Adaptability to changing circumstances is the very reason for a brain. We learn. So do other mammals. Learning is a capability of a robot like Data.

Evolution is smarter that you are. Evolution explores everything. If it needs quantum effects it uses it. If it needs an on-board computer it builds one. A computer can be built up from exactly one logical structure: NAND (not AND). A NAND takes two inputs and generates an output if either or both of the inputs are not present. Neurology is capable of implementing NAND. Neurology is capable of being an on-board computer.

The conscious is a passenger on a bus it is not driving; the spokesman for the body/mind responsible for explaining why the body/mind did what it did. Responsible for telling the driver where to go. Consciousness is the on-board computer capable of reasoning.
The driver (unconscious) is responsible for taking input from the environment and remembering patterns so the next time that pattern is seen it may be avoided, altered or repeated depending on the feedback from the environment, and presenting it to the conscious for decision-making by the on-board computer.

This is an advantage, of course. At one time you had to consciously drive. It was a complex process. Now you can drive quite unconsciously, even driving while talking or thinking.

Good explanation, but you actually don't know that. What you actually know is whatever impression you have subjectively and from that you are pleased to infer some objective world where biological robots exist and live happy lives but that is just a belief.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Do you experience consciousness?
I, myself, am a biological robot.
What I feel is what it is like to be a biological robot.

Now we're talking.

I'm the same way. I don't have control over what I do anymore than what my abilities and wisdom allow for. Most of what I do is actually sub conscious.

So you two go to the same church?
EB

 

[untermensche]

Now we're talking.

I'm the same way. I don't have control over what I do anymore than what my abilities and wisdom allow for. Most of what I do is actually sub conscious.

So you two go to the same church?
EB

What else can this be besides the GREAT DECEIVER model of consciousness?

If I am a biological robot I have no control over anything.

I have a consciousness that is aware but has control over nothing.

When something has absolutely no control it is not needed.

The model of consciousness that says that consciousness serves no purpose.

All I get from the proponents of this model is a denial they are proposing it.

 

[DBT]

Again; your claim of 'great deceiver model of consciousness' is a strawman you use as a smokescreen in a vain attempt to obscure the fact that you have no argument for substance duality, something that has no evidential support and is untestable. You just make claims.

What you do have is religious faith being strenuously defended using any means at your disposal that does not involve using reasoned arguments with supporting evidence.

 

[untermensche]

Again; your claim of 'great deceiver model of consciousness' is a strawman you use as a smokescreen in a vain attempt to obscure the fact that you have no argument for substance duality, something that has no evidential support and is untestable. You just make claims.

What you do have is religious faith being strenuously defended using any means at your disposal that does not involve using reasoned arguments with supporting evidence.

What can Consciousness do?

What action can it take?

Or does it initiate nothing?

 

[Treedbear]

This is where things get silly. What's needed is a good application of Occam's Razor. Why make the problem more complex than the evidence before us? We have a mass of neurons that are capable of extremely complex interactions. Now let's say there is some way to connect to another dimension or natural process we have no clear conception of but is the origin of consciousness. Ok, but then you still need to explain what causes consciousness! It's just placing it conveniently beyond our capability of ever discovering or even asking anything about it. Kind of like the argument for God as "The Uncaused Cause". By definition it doesn't need an explanation. Unless you have some other source of evidence for such a theory it's pure woo.

Then pursue your argument to its logical conclusion which is that any theory of reality should explain why reality, the whole of it, i.e. not just our 13.7 billion-year old universe, exists in the first place.

There will always be something you won't be able to explain. To explain something is to explain it in terms of something else and if it's not to make a circular argument then it will produce an infinite regress, always leaving out an unexplained cause. Who ever told you it won't be like that?!

That being said, the question is not whether we can explain consciousness in terms of the objective world but whether we can explain the objective world and consciousness together in one unitary explanation. It's not clear yet which term you have to start from and whether it's even possible at all.
EB

It sounds like you want to abandon any attempt at a rational scientific approach to understanding anything at all (let alone consciousness) because we can't explain existence "in the first place". It's such a common mistake humanity makes to think that we need to fill that gap no matter what the cost to our intellectual integrity. We don't know what caused the big bang, so God. We can't explain consciousness, so disembodied spirits.

I start from the idea that the brain's basic function is to create models of the world and the objects in it. All brains do. One special model is that of the self. We generallly attribute consciousness to human beings alone. At least that's the common view. I prefer to think of it as a spectrum across the animal kingdom. More complex brains have a greater ability to see relationships between the various models they create and to utilize metaphor in creating meaning. It allows us to assign probabilities and make predictions. So it is that humans model their own self image after the models of others around them, especially while learning what and who we are as an infant. The self plays an important role in how we interact with our environment. So if the self is just a model based on intimate personal awareness it stands to reason that its purpose is to allow the brain to predict what changes will take place and how it will interact within itself and to outside stimuli. I think that the particularly subjective experience that we call consciousness is due to the predominance of the self model as it enters into all the brain experiences. And that it becomes particularly relevant and distinct when we are aware of ourselves with respect to the things in our external environment.

 

[fromderinside]

Having read the last dozen or so posts I find the main problem here is not whither consciousness, but, whiter cause, purpose, and that ilk.

My thinking runs along the following lines. The brain handles things neural which include, sensing what is about one in the world, adjusting to what is about in the world, and perhaps helping one to produce a poem or two. The brain isn't there to cause anything, to serve any purpose, or anything like that. The brain (nervous system if you like) is an aggregate of all those nervous machines attendant to those tasks that are done through it.

One might describe the nervous system as the mind of the machine, the sensor, decider and effector of tasks and one wuold be wrong because the nervous system is an evolved aggregate. One may suggest it has will, but one would be wrong, primarily because it isn't an it, it is an aggregate of competing interests in may cases. One might also suggest it has consciousness, but one would be wrong again as before, it is an aggregate with competing interests. One might say the brain evolved, that would be wrong as well, the elements of the aggregate certainly evolved and among those elements that evolved are in appearance that it is doing things as a unitary entity when in fact, the entity, too, is an aggregate.

OK So I've wandered on enough.

Consider the nervous system an aggregate that functions more or less as an entity. What is the value of assigning will or consciousness to it? It isn't an it. The nervous aggregate may tend to facilitate others aggregates of its kind as a thing, a singular thing, with consistency in each and every willful and conscious action others conclude it is performing. But that would be to the aggregate entities advantage wouldn't it. QED

 

[untermensche]

Having read the last dozen or so posts I find the main problem here is not whither consciousness, but, whiter cause, purpose, and that ilk.

My thinking runs along the following lines. The brain handles things neural which include, sensing what is about one in the world, adjusting to what is about in the world, and perhaps helping one to produce a poem or two. The brain isn't there to cause anything, to serve any purpose, or anything like that. The brain (nervous system if you like) is an aggregate of all those nervous machines attendant to those tasks that are done through it.

One might describe the nervous system as the mind of the machine, the sensor, decider and effector of tasks and one wuold be wrong because the nervous system is an evolved aggregate. One may suggest it has will, but one would be wrong, primarily because it isn't an it, it is an aggregate of competing interests in may cases. One might also suggest it has consciousness, but one would be wrong again as before, it is an aggregate with competing interests. One might say the brain evolved, that would be wrong as well, the elements of the aggregate certainly evolved and among those elements that evolved are in appearance that it is doing things as a unitary entity when in fact, the entity, too, is an aggregate.

OK So I've wandered on enough.

Consider the nervous system an aggregate that functions more or less as an entity. What is the value of assigning will or consciousness to it? It isn't an it. The nervous aggregate may tend to facilitate others aggregates of its kind as a thing, a singular thing, with consistency in each and every willful and conscious action others conclude it is performing. But that would be to the aggregate entities advantage wouldn't it. QED

This is one position.

All human activity is actually robot-like brain activity.

Freedom and free choices are a total delusion.

Humans are aware but can do nothing to respond to this awareness.

I have a different position.

 

[DBT]

Again; your claim of 'great deceiver model of consciousness' is a strawman you use as a smokescreen in a vain attempt to obscure the fact that you have no argument for substance duality, something that has no evidential support and is untestable. You just make claims.

What you do have is religious faith being strenuously defended using any means at your disposal that does not involve using reasoned arguments with supporting evidence.

What can Consciousness do?

I've been through this too many times, consciousness is the brains working model/representation of the external world in relation to self....self being a representation of physical body and self identity - gender, language, likes, dislikes, education, pastimes, career and so on.

A means with which to interact with the world through a body of information being represented in virtual form, imagery, sight, sound, touch, smell, taste as sensations within the brains 'global workspace/conscious activity' which is constantly fed new information via the senses and memory function....and disintegrates if this information flow is disrupted, rendering the person impaired in relation to the nature of the disruption, blind/eyes/ visual cortex, unable to think, recognise/memory function and so on.

Consciousness being an organisms interface with the World.

What action can it take?

Consciousness is a critical part of brain function, information coming together from various regions of the brain into a comprehensive work space. It is not something separate from the brain, not an independent controller or non material entity that a brain tunes into like a radio.

Or does it initiate nothing?

The brain is the sole agent of regulating body functions, forming representation of world and self and responding to its inputs and memory base, forming imagery and sensation as a means to navigate.

Consciousness itself has no independence. In any given moment of conscious activity, it is whatever a brain is doing.

The information state of a brain, architecture, chemistry, electrical impulses, is reflected in its expression of consciousness

 

[untermensche]

What can Consciousness do?

I've been through this too many times, consciousness is the brains working model/representation of the external world in relation to self....self being a representation of physical body and self identity - gender, language, likes, dislikes, education, pastimes, career and so on.

A means with which to interact with the world through a body of information being represented in virtual form, imagery, sight, sound, touch, smell, taste as sensations within the brains 'global workspace/conscious activity' which is constantly fed new information via the senses and memory function....and disintegrates if this information flow is disrupted, rendering the person impaired in relation to the nature of the disruption, blind/eyes/ visual cortex, unable to think, recognise/memory function and so on.

Consciousness being an organisms interface with the World.

I didn't ask what consciousness is. I have a subjective consciousness. I know the things consciousness is. You have no understanding beyond subjective reports. No physiological explanation of one single aspect of experience.

I asked: What can it do? What task can it carry out? What process can it initiate?

A passive observer is not "interaction" with the world.

Interaction with the world is seeing the flower and initiating movement to examine it.

So again what can consciousness do?

What action can it take?

Consciousness is a critical part of brain function, information coming together from various regions of the brain into a comprehensive work space. It is not something separate from the brain, not an independent controller or non material entity that a brain tunes into like a radio.

Another non-answer. The question was, what action can it take, not where do you think it is located.

Or does it initiate nothing?

The brain is the sole agent of regulating body functions, forming representation of world and self and responding to its inputs and memory base, forming imagery and sensation as a means to navigate.

Consciousness itself has no independence. In any given moment of conscious activity, it is whatever a brain is doing.

The information state of a brain, architecture, chemistry, electrical impulses, is reflected in its expression of consciousness

You can't answer a direct question.

In your model consciousness does nothing, initiates nothing, it has desires but has no way to fulfill them. It is pure passivity. In other words completely unnecessary.

You can't simply state what you believe and answer simple questions directly so we get this song and dance instead of simple answers.

Your nonsense is on display for all to see.

 

[untermensche]

The 1990's was the "Decade of the Brain".

Massive amounts of research was funded with the purpose of understanding as much as possible about the human nervous system.

The greatest minds from all over the world had funds to carry out research.

27 years later and who knows how many billions and how many geniuses, how many corpses of other species, we still have no physiological explanation for consciousness.

If we employ subjective reporting we can locate areas that seem to have specific functions.

If a person has a thought we have no idea what specific activity is producing it.

For some reason, based on brain activity that is not understood, many have concluded the consciousness cannot move the arm willfully. The brain moves the arm for some reason only the brain knows and consciousness goes along for the ride.

Some have even concluded, using their robot-brain that for some reason makes these conclusions, that consciousness does not even exist.

Just because the same "thing" has awareness of all perception and sensation, a locus of perception and sensation, that does not mean this locus exists.

Things can all converge at a locus and still for some the locus does not even exist.

It's like drawing two lines that intersect and claiming there is no point of intersection.

So we have those who claim the consciousness exists but can do nothing and others who claim it doesn't even exist, as a singular entity, despite it being a locus.

I do not represent a third alternative. I do not claim to know what consciousness is.

I merely say these models are absurd and in need of serious explanation, not avoidance with another study using subjective reporting and brain activity that is not understood beyond it's timing and location in the least to make claims about consciousness.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Then pursue your argument to its logical conclusion which is that any theory of reality should explain why reality, the whole of it, i.e. not just our 13.7 billion-year old universe, exists in the first place.

There will always be something you won't be able to explain. To explain something is to explain it in terms of something else and if it's not to make a circular argument then it will produce an infinite regress, always leaving out an unexplained cause. Who ever told you it won't be like that?!

That being said, the question is not whether we can explain consciousness in terms of the objective world but whether we can explain the objective world and consciousness together in one unitary explanation. It's not clear yet which term you have to start from and whether it's even possible at all.
EB

It sounds like you want to abandon any attempt at a rational scientific approach to understanding anything at all (let alone consciousness) because we can't explain existence "in the first place". It's such a common mistake humanity makes to think that we need to fill that gap no matter what the cost to our intellectual integrity. We don't know what caused the big bang, so God. We can't explain consciousness, so disembodied spirits.

I start from the idea that the brain's basic function is to create models of the world and the objects in it. All brains do. One special model is that of the self. We generallly attribute consciousness to human beings alone. At least that's the common view. I prefer to think of it as a spectrum across the animal kingdom. More complex brains have a greater ability to see relationships between the various models they create and to utilize metaphor in creating meaning. It allows us to assign probabilities and make predictions. So it is that humans model their own self image after the models of others around them, especially while learning what and who we are as an infant. The self plays an important role in how we interact with our environment. So if the self is just a model based on intimate personal awareness it stands to reason that its purpose is to allow the brain to predict what changes will take place and how it will interact within itself and to outside stimuli. I think that the particularly subjective experience that we call consciousness is due to the predominance of the self model as it enters into all the brain experiences. And that it becomes particularly relevant and distinct when we are aware of ourselves with respect to the things in our external environment.

All I see in your explanation is more objective quantities and it works to some extent but it certainly doesn't work for explaining the subjectivity of the qualitative experience I at least have.

I'm all for science but I'm also not dogmatic and when I see a failure to explain I report a failure to explain.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

No, it's just that the science of the brain may never explain consciousness. It's somewhat like restricting yourself to the rules of chess to explain a game of chess. There are no other rules allowed so you are tempted to explain the game with only the known rules yet the rules don't actually explain any particular game of chess.
EB

Understanding consciousness means identifying and understanding the specific processes that generate it.

I'm not sure that even that can be regarded as a necessarily good bet. That seems a typically materialistic kind of explanation.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Understanding consciousness means identifying and understanding the specific processes that generate it.

I'm not sure that even that can be regarded as a necessarily good bet. That seems a typically materialistic kind of explanation.
EB

It doesn't refer to any specific kind of explanation.

Only that one is necessary to say you understand.

 

[fromderinside]

I have a different position.

Do you disagree the brain is a evolutionary genetic aggregate? Or do you disagree with your statements in your post as strawman for the quoted statement in this post?

I disagree with both your strawman and your opinion as I just wrote above.

This bit is key:

Consider the nervous system an aggregate that functions more or less as an entity. What is the value of assigning will or consciousness to it? It isn't an it. The nervous aggregate may tend to facilitate others aggregates of its kind as a thing, a singular thing, with consistency in each and every willful and conscious action others conclude it is performing. But that would be to the aggregate entities advantage wouldn't it. QED