Consciousness

[Juma]

matter is just energy so according to your twisted way of thinking then there is nothing but energy...

Matter is not just energy. Matter equates to a quantity of energy, but it is not just energy.

But this is bullshit. There ARE structure in this world. That structure exists and is as important on any level!

According to Britannica and common sense, "Matter material substance that constitutes the observable universe, and together with energy, forms the basis of all objective phenomenon". https://www.britannica.com/topic/matter

Atoms are processes. They are structures of interaction between particles (waves)
Particles are processes they are structures of interactions between smaller parts.

You seem to have some magical view of the physical matter as some sort of substance that
Is always there.
Something like a sort of deistic lego.

That's why I originally said that matter is conserved, and you twisted it, like usually.

? What? Matter is not conserved. Electric charge is conserved, momentum is conserved. Matter is not.

If you would just look at what I originally wrote so I wouldn't have to repeat myself until I make a mistake, you would see that I said matter and energy are conserved. If matter decreases, energy must increase and vice versa.

0) matter is energy + structure.
1) Matter and energy being the base is not the same as they are everything.
2) matter and energy is not conserved since matter is not conserved.

 

[untermensche]

There is nothing "apparent" about the "will" of a fly.

But to me it feels as if "I" decide when to go to bed, not just the sensation of being tired.

I sense I have control over things. My movements, which ideas I accept or reject, what things I will say.

Not total control but a measure of control.

If others feel as if they have no control at all I have never heard of this.

So tell me when "you" decide to move. Which brain neurons do you access? Which memories do you call upon? Which nerves do you fire to control which muscles and in what order do you do all this? lol Your brain and muscles figured all this out before you were even self-conscious.

These are questions but not objections.

I see a picture of a person I know. The name escapes me.

I do "something", I make some kind of "mental effort", and many times the name comes to me, sometimes it doesn't.

But it is "I" making the effort, "I" with the goal of remembering.

Not the brain, which is merely the medium my "will" uses to carry out it's desires.

If I ask you to picture an apple in your head. What do you picture? Is it in colour, red or green. Is it a painting or 3d, On a table or in a basket or just an apple. Whatever picture you brain has served you is most likely complied from many pictures and memories. If I ask you next month, you may get a different picture altogether.

If you ask me to imagine an apple you haven't forced me or my brain to do anything.

It is still a "free" choice to imagine or not.

And if I can imagine an apple at will that is evidence my "will" can do things.

 

[untermensche]

What you call a predicted outcome is called a habit.

Humans have habits. They have tendencies.

But humans are able to change habits as well.

So if I'm in the habit of choosing chocolate my choice is not freely willed, or rather doesn't involve the will at all? Why is it that when people insist on never changing something they are called willful?

It is not an act of will if you have no choice. If you are forced to do something then you have not "willed" to do it.

If you could choose vanilla but you don't then the choice of chocolate is an act of the will. Not forced, but something done quite often because the sensation is liked.

But what is it that "likes" one flavor over another?

What possible difference could it make to a brain which flavor is chosen?

It is only consciousness, that which is aware of flavor, that cares.

And even acting out a charade can serve a purpose

Life as charade is not a life worth living.

The only life worth living is the life where you can make choices that are not forced upon you.

There is no perfect freedom.

No, you cannot just shut off the sex drive or the needs of food and water.

But the freedom to choose between which flavor of ice cream you will have for desert is not perfect freedom, just a measure of freedom.

 

[OLDMAN]

So tell me when "you" decide to move. Which brain neurons do you access? Which memories do you call upon? Which nerves do you fire to control which muscles and in what order do you do all this? lol Your brain and muscles figured all this out before you were even self-conscious.

These are questions but not objections.

I see a picture of a person I know. The name escapes me.

I do "something", I make some kind of "mental effort", and many times the name comes to me, sometimes it doesn't.

But it is "I" making the effort, "I" with the goal of remembering.

Not the brain, which is merely the medium my "will" uses to carry out it's desires.

If I ask you to picture an apple in your head. What do you picture? Is it in colour, red or green. Is it a painting or 3d, On a table or in a basket or just an apple. Whatever picture you brain has served you is most likely complied from many pictures and memories. If I ask you next month, you may get a different picture altogether.

If you ask me to imagine an apple you haven't forced me or my brain to do anything.

It is still a "free" choice to imagine or not.

And if I can imagine an apple at will that is evidence my "will" can do things.

But what apple are you imagining? Where does it come from, if you are not going in and selecting it?

We are not people with brains that we use to figure things out. We are brains with personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

 

[untermensche]

But what apple are you imagining?

The one of my choosing.

Where does it come from, if you are not going in and selecting it?

I'm not going into anything.

I just do it, "at will".

A trick I can do "at will". I can imagine all kinds of things "at will".

We are not people with brains that we use to figure things out.

We sure are.

We are brains with personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

A brain has no need of a "persona" to figure anything out.

At least that should not be a given. It is something that needs proving.

 

[ryan]

Matter is not just energy. Matter equates to a quantity of energy, but it is not just energy.

But this is bullshit. There ARE structure in this world. That structure exists and is as important on any level!

According to Britannica and common sense, "Matter material substance that constitutes the observable universe, and together with energy, forms the basis of all objective phenomenon". https://www.britannica.com/topic/matter

Atoms are processes. They are structures of interaction between particles (waves)
Particles are processes they are structures of interactions between smaller parts.

You seem to have some magical view of the physical matter as some sort of substance that
Is always there.
Something like a sort of deistic lego.

That's why I originally said that matter is conserved, and you twisted it, like usually.

? What? Matter is not conserved. Electric charge is conserved, momentum is conserved. Matter is not.

If you would just look at what I originally wrote so I wouldn't have to repeat myself until I make a mistake, you would see that I said matter and energy are conserved. If matter decreases, energy must increase and vice versa.

0) matter is energy + structure.
1) Matter and energy being the base is not the same as they are everything.
2) matter and energy is not conserved since matter is not conserved.

What exactly is there that is not matter or energy?

What do you think matter becomes when it is no longer matter? Is there a 2nd option other than energy?

 

[DBT]

No, the hard problem is understanding how the brain forms conscious experience. That the brain is forming this activity is quite clear... we just don't know how.

That was not what I was saying at all. And according to Chalmers, who coined the term:

"What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?" (1995, 202, emphasis in original). from http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

Nothing in your quote is at odds with what I said. It just goes into more detail about the problem of understanding how the brain forms conscious experience, some folk just like to take ambiguous inferences too far in an attempt to justify their own preferred explanation for mind/consciousness. It doesn't work, ryan.

How, if there is a how, will explain some, but it might not explain everything about consciousness

Like what specifically? What exactly is there about consciousness that cannot be attributed to the activity of a brain?

You are oversimplifying the problem. If panpsychism is true, then you never switch off the consciousness.

Not at all. Conscious activity in the brain is suppressed or turned off routinely whenever a patient is put under general anesthetic for an operation for example. Being conscious of getting cut open would not be pleasant.

 

[Juma]

Matter is not just energy. Matter equates to a quantity of energy, but it is not just energy.

But this is bullshit. There ARE structure in this world. That structure exists and is as important on any level!

According to Britannica and common sense, "Matter material substance that constitutes the observable universe, and together with energy, forms the basis of all objective phenomenon". https://www.britannica.com/topic/matter

Atoms are processes. They are structures of interaction between particles (waves)
Particles are processes they are structures of interactions between smaller parts.

You seem to have some magical view of the physical matter as some sort of substance that
Is always there.
Something like a sort of deistic lego.

That's why I originally said that matter is conserved, and you twisted it, like usually.

? What? Matter is not conserved. Electric charge is conserved, momentum is conserved. Matter is not.

If you would just look at what I originally wrote so I wouldn't have to repeat myself until I make a mistake, you would see that I said matter and energy are conserved. If matter decreases, energy must increase and vice versa.

0) matter is energy + structure.
1) Matter and energy being the base is not the same as they are everything.
2) matter and energy is not conserved since matter is not conserved.

What exactly is there that is not matter or energy?

Structure, interaction, movement, dimensions. Rather a lot really.

What do you think matter becomes when it is no longer matter? Is there a 2nd option other than energy?

What? Why do you ask this? Have I said that matter can become anything else than energy? Matter is a form of energy. E = mcc. Matter in itself is not conserved.

 

[fromderinside]

The one of my choosing.

Where does it come from, if you are not going in and selecting it?

I'm not going into anything.

I just do it, "at will".

A trick I can do "at will". I can imagine all kinds of things "at will".

We are not people with brains that we use to figure things out.

We sure are.

We are brains with personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

A brain has no need of a "persona" to figure anything out.

At least that should not be a given. It is something that needs proving.

At will indeed. Its as if the the great faerie were beside you. You don't will, you just do. What kind of doo doo is that? If it's you and you did it then either you willed it or you are a machine. As you know I'm a great believer in machines. So you wouldn't want to agree with me would you ......

 

[ryan]

That was not what I was saying at all. And according to Chalmers, who coined the term:

"What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?" (1995, 202, emphasis in original). from http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

Nothing in your quote is at odds with what I said. It just goes into more detail about the problem of understanding how the brain forms conscious experience, some folk just like to take ambiguous inferences too far in an attempt to justify their own preferred explanation for mind/consciousness. It doesn't work, ryan.

How, if there is a how, will explain some, but it might not explain everything about consciousness

Like what specifically? What exactly is there about consciousness that cannot be attributed to the activity of a brain?

We know how gravity works, but we don't know exactly what it is yet. A child may know how to bake a cookie and have no idea what it is. The consciousness is even stranger. The "what the hell is it" question might not be answered with the how question.

You are oversimplifying the problem. If panpsychism is true, then you never switch off the consciousness.

Not at all. Conscious activity in the brain is suppressed or turned off routinely whenever a patient is put under general anesthetic for an operation for example. Being conscious of getting cut open would not be pleasant.

If panpsychism is true, there would still be consciousness, but it wouldn't be unified like what we are used to.

 

[ryan]

What exactly is there that is not matter or energy?

Structure, interaction, movement, dimensions. Rather a lot really.

Structure is a mental image of the particles floating around out there. Structure has no objective existence. Same with interaction and movement, they exist in the mind, but out there the Standard model sufficiently (for the most part) describes what exists inside a 4 dimensional mental construct.

Anything else is ambiguous and redundant and cannot be said to exist in addition to the Standard model.

 

[Juma]

Structure, interaction, movement, dimensions. Rather a lot really.

Structure is a mental image of the particles floating around out there. Structure has no objective existence. Same with interaction and movement, they exist in the mind, but out there the Standard model sufficiently (for the most part) describes what exists inside a 4 dimensional mental construct.

so atoms has no objective existence? The periodic system of elements is just a fidgment of imagination?

 

[ryan]

Structure is a mental image of the particles floating around out there. Structure has no objective existence. Same with interaction and movement, they exist in the mind, but out there the Standard model sufficiently (for the most part) describes what exists inside a 4 dimensional mental construct.

so atoms has no objective existence? The periodic system of elements is just a fidgment of imagination?

You can define an atom in terms of the standard model and then just replace the mental symbol "atom" with the mental construct requiring particles of the Standard model. But you don't need to do this, and you will only cause unnecessary ambiguity for the purposes of this conversation.

For example, we define atom X with having mass m. If I say that the atom exists in addition to the particles of the Standard model that make up the atom, I will clearly double the mass m. It has to be one or the other that exists.

The Standard model in a 4d mental construct is sufficiently simplified.

 

[Juma]

so atoms has no objective existence? The periodic system of elements is just a fidgment of imagination?

You can define an atom in terms of the standard model and then just replace the mental symbol "atom" with the mental construct requiring particles of the Standard model. But you don't need to do this, and you will only cause unnecessary ambiguity for the purposes of this conversation.

For example, we define atom X with having mass m. If I say that the atom exists in addition to the particles of the Standard model that make up the atom, I will clearly double the mass m. It has to be one or the other that exists.

The Standard model in a 4d mental construct is sufficiently simplified.

Without the structures of the atom there wouldnt be an atom.
The structures are made possible by the structures of the quarks in the constituent particles.

No I give up. You are just trolling. Noone can be so stupid that he really believed what you write.

The atomic structure actually lessen the mass since part of the energy is stored as potential energy.

 

[OLDMAN]

The one of my choosing.

Where does it come from, if you are not going in and selecting it?

I'm not going into anything.

I just do it, "at will".

A trick I can do "at will". I can imagine all kinds of things "at will".

We are not people with brains that we use to figure things out.

We sure are.

We are brains with personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

A brain has no need of a "persona" to figure anything out.

At least that should not be a given. It is something that needs proving.

Just tricks you can do? How about a real discussion?

 

[ryan]

You can define an atom in terms of the standard model and then just replace the mental symbol "atom" with the mental construct requiring particles of the Standard model. But you don't need to do this, and you will only cause unnecessary ambiguity for the purposes of this conversation.

For example, we define atom X with having mass m. If I say that the atom exists in addition to the particles of the Standard model that make up the atom, I will clearly double the mass m. It has to be one or the other that exists.

The Standard model in a 4d mental construct is sufficiently simplified.

Without the structures of the atom there wouldnt be an atom.
The structures are made possible by the structures of the quarks in the constituent particles.

So the quarks are the structures you were referring to? Are you aware that quarks are particles from the Standard model?

No I give up. You are just trolling. Noone can be so stupid that he really believed what you write.

The atomic structure actually lessen the mass since part of the energy is stored as potential energy.

I am talking about the masses of the quarks of the atom. But anyways, we still have quarks/matter and energy.

In an attempt to understand what the hell you are talking about, maybe you could say that what you think exists as "structure" in addition to particles and energy outside of the brain are simply spaces in a dimensional framework.

 

[untermensche]

Just tricks you can do? How about a real discussion?

Avoiding the truth is avoiding a "real" discussion.

When a person wants to remember something they make some kind of "mental effort" and many times the memory surfaces.

Nobody knows what this "mental effort" is.

But pretending it isn't the way it is experienced is avoiding a "real" discussion.

 

[DBT]

We know how gravity works, but we don't know exactly what it is yet.

How gravity works is related to what gravity is. So we don't have complete knowledge about gravity.
Just as it is clear that it is the brain that's responsible for generating the internal experience we call conscious mind, even though we don't know how a brain forms conscious mind.

There being no reason to propose magical solutions for what gravity is or how conscious mind is formed.

A child may know how to bake a cookie and have no idea what it is. The consciousness is even stranger. The "what the hell is it" question might not be answered with the how question.

We know what consciousness is. We are experiencing it right now....a collection of attributes and features presented in virtual form, sight, sound, smell, touch, feelings, thoughts, etc...not all running at the same time.

We just don't know how these collections of virtual experiences are being formed.

If panpsychism is true, there would still be consciousness, but it wouldn't be unified like what we are used to.

Consciousness is not unified as it is.

 

[DBT]

Just tricks you can do? How about a real discussion?

Avoiding the truth is avoiding a "real" discussion.

When a person wants to remember something they make some kind of "mental effort" and many times the memory surfaces.

Nobody knows what this "mental effort" is.

But pretending it isn't the way it is experienced is avoiding a "real" discussion.

Both the effort to remember and the underlying work of remembering being produced by the brain, the brain being a modular system.

The part 'trying to remember' is just a another aspect of the system and not an autonomous entity that directs brain function.

 

[Juma]

Without the structures of the atom there wouldnt be an atom.
The structures are made possible by the structures of the quarks in the constituent particles.

So the quarks are the structures you were referring to? Are you aware that quarks are particles from the Standard model?

No I give up. You are just trolling. Noone can be so stupid that he really believed what you write.

The atomic structure actually lessen the mass since part of the energy is stored as potential energy.

I am talking about the masses of the quarks of the atom. But anyways, we still have quarks/matter and energy.

In an attempt to understand what the hell you are talking about, maybe you could say that what you think exists as "structure" in addition to particles and energy outside of the brain are simply spaces in a dimensional framework.

Structure are not "spaces". Structure are order. Processes are structures in soace and time.

Water is different structures than gold.