Consciousness

[Rayschism]

I close my eyes only for a moment then the moment's gone.

 

[DBT]

It is the fact of your experience. What you ignore is how your experience is being formed and generated, ie, by brain agency. If that fails, you have no abilities whatsoever, you cannot will your arm to move, you cannot act.

What I ignore are your absurd claims that you have the slightest idea how experience is formed and generated.

You don't.

Experience requires both that which can experience and the things it can experience. You don't have the slightest idea how the brain creates either. You don't even understand their necessity.

You look at brain activity you don't understand in the least and make claims you understand it.

You don't.

There it is again. The same old mantra. Ignore the facts, rinse and repeat your irrelevant objections.

Irrelevant because nobody has ever claimed to know how a brain forms consciousness....but that based on all of the available evidence, it is clear that it does.

It doesn't matter that we don't know how, for the purpose of establishing agency it only matters that it does.

Which the evidence supports.

Now you can rage and cry over this, spit your dummy, hurl insults and abuse at your opponent, but you can't change the basic facts; all of the available evidence supports brain agency with nothing that indicates autonomy of consciousness or brain as a receiver, which is pure speculation.

 

[DBT]

We know this, because interfering with those patterns (either electrically, chemically, or magnetically) causes reports of changes to consciousness by the subject of that interference.

Really?

We put people in huge magnets, MRI machines.

And it has no effect on consciousness.

Sorry, but you really don't have a clue. You need to stop. You are not doing yourself any favours.


Could certain frequencies of electromagnetic waves or radiation interfere with brain function?

Amir Raz, assistant professor of clinical neuroscience at Columbia University, offers the following answer.

'Definitely. Radiation is energy and research findings provide at least some information concerning how specific types may influence biological tissue, including that of the brain. In some cases the effect may be therapeutic. For example, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technique used to induce a short-term interruption of normal activity in a relatively restricted area of the brain by rapidly changing a strong magnetic field near the area of interest. Mark George provided a nice account of TMS in the September 2003 issue of Scientific American. In it he described how head-mounted wire coils can deliver powerful yet evanescent magnetic pulses directly into focal brain regions to painlessly modulate neural activity by inducing minute electric currents. Clinically, TMS may be helpful in alleviating certain symptoms, including those of depression.''

 

[Speakpigeon]

The issue is rather simple. I say qualia exist for real and that I know them as such and that they are the only things I know. You don't have to read long books, or even long articles on the subject. Qualia are just the quality of the impressions you have as a conscious subject: all sensations, all ideas, all memories, thoughts, perceptions etc. as long as you only retain the qualitative aspect of them, leaving aside whatever you may believe these impressions may be impressions of. So defined, I really don't see how anyone could claim that they don't exist. It's just a stupid position to have. But you're welcome to defend it.

Still, I only see two avenues for you to criticise my position.

First, you could say that qualia just do not exist at all. Second, you could try to explain how qualia are epiphenomena, i.e. they are somehow mere appearances, somehow produced by the brain, illusions.


First possibility, you could say that qualia do not exist at all. So what? What does it matter what you think and what you want to say in that respect. Does it somehow change the fact that I know my qualia? Obviously not. And it does not matter either that other people cannot experience my qualia. They can experience their own, and some posters on this forum routinely report exactly that. In fact, anybody can decide for themselves whether they experience qualia or not. What you and I can say in this respect will not affect the fact of the matter, so to speak. What any scientist could say will not affect the fact of the matter. This of course leaves me with a secondary problem which is that I would like to understand how it's at all possible that you yourself don't experience qualia. I have already provided an analysis of the various possibilities and indeed the prominent one is that you are not so bright that you understand the notion of qualia and therefore don't understand that what you in fact experience are just qualia. But I couldn't possibly know that so I will have to live without the satisfaction of solving this one puzzle.

Second possibility, you could try to explain how qualia are epiphenomenal. That'd be a bad move. The notion of epiphenomenon is basically used by people who don't understand what they are talking about. It's the magic wand to stop seeing the problem. The word qualia means something that doesn't lend itself to being reduced to an epiphenomenon. Quale means quality. A quality either exists as such or it does not, and if it does not then no amount of epiphenomenon will somehow magically produce that quality. Now, people experience qualia. They're not faking it. They are not lying. They are not delusional. When I have a painful sensation you're not going to convince me that it's somehow a delusion. When I see something blue, you're not going to convince me that the quality of that blue is entirely imaginary. In fact, it is entirely imaginary. There's no blue outside my mind. Blue is all somehow inside my mind. It is imaginary because it's something in my imagination, my ability to represent things to myself. So even as it is imaginary, it is nonetheless perfectly real. To say that it is an illusion would produce the same result. Delusions happen but they are invariably accompanied by their own associated qualia. It's also somewhat pathetic not to understand by yourself that it's absurd to claim that the quality of an impression does not exist. We probably all experience the qualities of our impression so you're not going to convince many people.



There is of course still another possibility, which is that you could try to explain what qualia really are. For you, this would require being able to articulate a physical or material explanation of qualia. So, you could just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are. Are they energy? Are they matter? Are they elementary particles? Are they an electromagnetic field? Or are they a property of these things, like an electric charge or a spin? Something else material or physical? Strings? Superstrings? Dark matter? Dark energy? Gravitational waves? A black hole? What?

However, since you are quite incapable of producing such an explanation, what remains for you is just to deny that qualia exist at all and that's what you are doing even though it's an absurd position to hold.


As to my own position and any justification I need to produce the answer is already given: none whatsoever. I readily admit I can't share my qualia. I can't send them by mail or take a picture. However, I have the magic logic that since we all experience our own qualia, I only need people to understand what I'm talking about and to make up their own mind about their own qualia, not about mine.

As to the question of how qualia got into my mind, I also readily admit I don't know. I don't have this pretense to have any comprehensive paradigm similar to materialism. Yet, no worry, all I need to do is point out that materialism fails because you cannot explain qualia in physical or material terms. It's not just you. It's all the scientists in the world. It's all the materialists in the world. They're quite a few you know. They're all stuck on this question. I don't know how to explain qualia in physical terms but I don't feel concerned by this noble quest. Do it if you can and tell me when you are done.

So I think this deals nicely with all your points, over to you now.
EB

Oh, you mean attribute. Color is an attribute of vase, something imparted by light reflecting off of it that you perceive to which you assign a name when you speak of it as a quality of the image you are trying to explain to us.

In other words qualia don't exist, they were defined before we understood how the material world is encoded and used by our nervous system, they used as placeholders for what they hoped to understand when they knew more.

You apparently haven't noticed we are replacing them with operationally defined terms based on what the brain does rather than interposing some conceptual structure. That conceptual structure is now understood as being completely different from what these poor ignorant souls who didn't understand could produce.

We're done here.

That you are done just shows you don't understand much even when provided with detailed explanations.

You asked for my views, I've provided them, and look what you've done with that!

You choose to ignore arguments contrary to your views and use a pirouette to escape but it is still patent that you have just evaded my arguments. You think it's not obvious?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

....I say qualia exist for real and that I know them as such and that they are the only things I know...

"Real" is a redundancy here.

If they exist of course they meet the criteria for the honorific "real".

You know you experience the qualities of blue.

You know your experience is "real".

Therefore "you" that which experiences them is "real" too.

I can experience thoughts, therefore I exist.

More literal mindedness from you. You just can't stop yourself.

You have an unlimited supply of the stuff.

You can't even distinguish rhetorical form from substance.

No wonder.

You won't have any meaningful exchange with other people if you keep doing that.

Of my God, I just said "other people", but "other" is redundant here.
EB

 

[untermensche]

What I ignore are your absurd claims that you have the slightest idea how experience is formed and generated.

You don't.

Experience requires both that which can experience and the things it can experience. You don't have the slightest idea how the brain creates either. You don't even understand their necessity.

You look at brain activity you don't understand in the least and make claims you understand it.

You don't.

There it is again. The same old mantra. Ignore the facts, rinse and repeat your irrelevant objections.

Irrelevant because nobody has ever claimed to know how a brain forms consciousness....but that based on all of the available evidence, it is clear that it does.

It doesn't matter that we don't know how, for the purpose of establishing agency it only matters that it does.

Which the evidence supports.

Now you can rage and cry over this, spit your dummy, hurl insults and abuse at your opponent, but you can't change the basic facts; all of the available evidence supports brain agency with nothing that indicates autonomy of consciousness or brain as a receiver, which is pure speculation.

You have no facts about consciousness. And this gibberish is evidence of that.

A person with facts on their side would not engage like this.

You have not one bit of understanding of consciousness beyond your experience of it.

In terms of brain physiology you don't have any idea what it is.

Your claims to knowledge are laughable.

 

[untermensche]

Really?

We put people in huge magnets, MRI machines.

And it has no effect on consciousness.

Sorry, but you really don't have a clue. You need to stop. You are not doing yourself any favours.


Could certain frequencies of electromagnetic waves or radiation interfere with brain function?

Amir Raz, assistant professor of clinical neuroscience at Columbia University, offers the following answer.

'Definitely. Radiation is energy and research findings provide at least some information concerning how specific types may influence biological tissue, including that of the brain. In some cases the effect may be therapeutic. For example, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technique used to induce a short-term interruption of normal activity in a relatively restricted area of the brain by rapidly changing a strong magnetic field near the area of interest. Mark George provided a nice account of TMS in the September 2003 issue of Scientific American. In it he described how head-mounted wire coils can deliver powerful yet evanescent magnetic pulses directly into focal brain regions to painlessly modulate neural activity by inducing minute electric currents. Clinically, TMS may be helpful in alleviating certain symptoms, including those of depression.''

The link like your ideas goes nowhere.

And that study does not seem to say one word about MRI.

It looks to be more hand waving from you.

 

[untermensche]

"Real" is a redundancy here.

If they exist of course they meet the criteria for the honorific "real".

You know you experience the qualities of blue.

You know your experience is "real".

Therefore "you" that which experiences them is "real" too.

I can experience thoughts, therefore I exist.

More literal mindedness from you. You just can't stop yourself.

You have an unlimited supply of the stuff.

You can't even distinguish rhetorical form from substance.

No wonder.

You won't have any meaningful exchange with other people if you keep doing that.

Of my God, I just said "other people", but "other" is redundant here.
EB

I make simple logical arguments.

And I am met with rants.

If there is experience there must be both the thing that experiences and the thing it can experience.

There cannot just be the thing experienced.

Thinking like that leads to rants.

 

[fromderinside]

Oh, you mean attribute. Color is an attribute of vase, something imparted by light reflecting off of it that you perceive to which you assign a name when you speak of it as a quality of the image you are trying to explain to us.

In other words qualia don't exist, they were defined before we understood how the material world is encoded and used by our nervous system, they used as placeholders for what they hoped to understand when they knew more.

You apparently haven't noticed we are replacing them with operationally defined terms based on what the brain does rather than interposing some conceptual structure. That conceptual structure is now understood as being completely different from what these poor ignorant souls who didn't understand could produce.

We're done here.

That you are done just shows you don't understand much even when provided with detailed explanations.

You asked for my views, I've provided them, and look what you've done with that!

You choose to ignore arguments contrary to your views and use a pirouette to escape but it is still patent that you have just evaded my arguments. You think it's not obvious?
EB

Time is on my side here.

Your arguments are based on the notion that consciousness is an experience related to something, presumably the real world one believes.

What you call consciousness is clearly a post hoc situation since it is not possible for one to be aware of what is currently happening using material systems in a material world. That being the case all that remains is the belief that consciousness, er, experience is a predicted state of affairs at the current time arrived at by some unknown means. So you open the door to a imagined place where what is thought is an aura, a fluffy non material state where exists such as quale.

Not a bad attempt for those around 2400 years ago, but, not near what we know the way things are today. An attribute is a something attached to something larger, more complex, more substantial. A quale stands on its own. Yet, attribute, as I described it perfectly matches your qualia. Ask yourself why is that.

My answer for you would be "we've come a long way baby". The way we related feelings and appearances to things today is by associating them with first, the real physical thing, second, the transduced and communicated physical thing in our nervous system, and third, to magic. Unfortunately your default position is magic.

 

[Rayschism]

Maybe we're not really conscious and we're just in one big ole holodeck simulation.

 

[PyramidHead]

Maybe we're not really conscious and we're just in one big ole holodeck simulation.

In which case we would still be conscious, but the external world would not be what we think it is. Welcome to the forum.

 

[fromderinside]

Naw. We conscious because we say we are conscious.

That we are not conscious is because science has replaced that concept with those of transduction, communication, and process state of what we sense. In the fairly near term consciousness will be replaced by working models developed from operational definitions using those constructs. It will be something like we are aware where we were when we began to respond to what we sensed.

Remember, without language, we can't communicate anything other than that, nor, for that matter, can we experience anything other than that.

 

[Rayschism]

Maybe we're not really conscious and we're just in one big ole holodeck simulation.

In which case we would still be conscious, but the external world would not be what we think it is. Welcome to the forum.

Thanks.

Maybe we're the dream of the Dolphin?

 

[untermensche]

Naw. We conscious because we say we are conscious.

We say we are conscious of things because we are.

If I were not conscious of a keyboard this could not go on.

- - - Updated - - -

In which case we would still be conscious, but the external world would not be what we think it is. Welcome to the forum.

Thanks.

Maybe we're the dream of the Dolphin?

We know what we are.

We are apes.

And do things as apes do them.

 

[Rayschism]

We say we are conscious of things because we are.

If I were not conscious of a keyboard this could not go on.

- - - Updated - - -

In which case we would still be conscious, but the external world would not be what we think it is. Welcome to the forum.

Thanks.

Maybe we're the dream of the Dolphin?

We know what we are.

We are apes.

And do things as apes do them.

Actually evolution teaches us that we are homids, and that we are not apes, that both apes and humans have a common ancestor tyhat existed five to eight million years ago.

 

[untermensche]

We say we are conscious of things because we are.

If I were not conscious of a keyboard this could not go on.

- - - Updated - - -

In which case we would still be conscious, but the external world would not be what we think it is. Welcome to the forum.

Thanks.

Maybe we're the dream of the Dolphin?

We know what we are.

We are apes.

And do things as apes do them.

Actually evolution teaches us that we are homids, and that we are not apes, that both apes and humans have a common ancestor tyhat existed five to eight million years ago.

Calling an ape a hominid I think was some ape's idea.

But the truth is:

The Hominidae (/hɒˈmɪnᵻdiː/), whose members are known as great apes[note 1] or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes seven extant species in four genera: Pongo, the Bornean and Sumatran orangutan; Gorilla, the eastern and western gorilla; Pan, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo; and Homo, the human (and though not extant, the near-human ancestors and relatives (e.g., the Neanderthal)).[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

We're not just apes, we're great apes.

 

[fromderinside]

 Linnaeus would be proud that you found that bit.

 

[untermensche]

 Linnaeus would be proud that you found that bit.

Apes have pride.

Especially the great ones.

 

[fromderinside]

OK. So you took a great breath in, held it, then pushed out your chest.

Uh, that isn't great. That's puffed up.

 

[untermensche]

OK. So you took a great breath in, held it, then pushed out your chest.

Uh, that isn't great. That's puffed up.

Why not address the substance.

Again, we say we are conscious of things because we clearly are.

Look down, if you were not conscious of letters you could not use them to communicate.