Why reductive explanations of consciousness must fail

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Reductive explanations of consciousness fail because they cannot address why physical processes give rise to subjective experience. While physical accounts effectively explain structures and functions, they do not entail the emergence of experience, which remains conceptually distinct. Unlike vitalism, which doubted physical mechanisms could explain life, the challenge with consciousness lies in the fact that functions can be explained without accounting for experience. The discussion highlights that conscious experience is not merely an automatic consequence of physical processes, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding. Ultimately, the problem of consciousness is fundamentally different from other scientific inquiries, requiring more than just reductive methods.
  • #211
Originally posted by hypnagogue
M. Gaspar, please don't take my comments to mean I don't want you posting in this thread. I just want the discussion to stay on track. On further reflection, I think my main objection was that you posted a flurry of posts which could have been condensed into one post. But anyway, now that you're caught up and into the discussion that shouldn't be a problem anymore. So I apologize for coming off the wrong way and ask you to please not hesitate to make your own contributions to this thread.
Thanks.

That having been said, I would like to comment on a view that is in some degree held by both M. Gaspar and Dark Wing. Both seem to advocate "response to information" as tightly bound up with the concept of consciousness. Strictly speaking, although consciousness certainly does involve response to information, it is not a good idea to equate or tightly correlate the two.
Why? I think it's a GREAT idea.

There are mounds of research suggesting that a great deal of the information processing that the brain does occurs entirely independently of consciousness.
Remember: there are "degrees of consciousness" ...even within a single system. A system as a whole might be "aware" of certain incoming -- or stored -- information ...but not of others at any given time. There is a distinction between the word "conscious" which relates to what we tend to think of as an "awake" state in biological organisms (did they faint or are they comotose?)

Let us not "collapse" into one another the dual meanings of the word "conscious" ...tho I admit to having a very hard time coming up with the distinctions that I'm referring to.

I think of consciousness as going on at many levels ABOVE or BELOW whatever threshold makes them "known to" the entity as a whole. But if an entity is receiving and responding to information -- even when it doesn't "know" it is -- it is still "conscious" of the information on some "level".

For instance, patients with blindsight can meaningfully interact with objects even though they have no visual awareness of these objects or conceptual awareness of exactly how it is that they can react meaningfully to things they can't see. This suggests that "response to information" is not a sufficient condition for consciousness; response to the environment can occur without attendant conscious experience.
You see, we don't know of all the "sensory appartus" that may be at our disposal -- and, in fact, being USED. Obviously, these people are "sensing" and "responding to" SOMETHING and thereby "conscious" of it whether they know it or not!
 
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  • #212
Originally posted by M. Gaspar
What would be the "contents of consciousness"? Possibly all that an entity "remembers".
The contents of consciousness is whatever one is conscious of at any moment. That may be a memory, but it will be many other things as well.

Our brains, for instance, are "set up" to "store" a LOT of information (units -- or WHOLE CHUNCKS OF -- "experiences" that can be accessed, referenced and assigned "meaning" ...somehow. Still, I cannot think -- as yet -- how an entity would form "meaning". In fact, I'm not sure how to DEFINE "meaning" with regard to "consciousness. What would YOU say?
Defining 'meaning' in the abstract is a difficult problem. The term gets used differently in different contexts. I certainly don't have a sensible way of doing it.

However I suspect meaning depends on relations. That is, for information to have meaning it must be related to other information with meaning. For instance, the meaning of theorems within a formal system is derived from the other theorems, and ultimately from the axioms. This implies that 'meaning' exists only relatively, and is always dependent on the assumed meaning of some other information rather than having an independent existence as an abstract entity.

But I have said that materialism DOES account for consciousness, by exchanging information to such a degree and complexity that "meaning" arises. Thank you for that word. It is giving me something new to think about.
What makes you say that materialism can account for consciousness? There are strong objections to this view.

Hold on, Canute, you're preaching to the CHOIR! I am among those who do NOT believe that consciousness is contingent on biology. Biology may have achieved an "advanced state" of consciousness ...but it is NOT the only thing that's conscious. Each cell of an organism is conscious of SOMETHING ...usually MANY things. And the parts of the atoms are "aware" of each other, as might the galaxies be.'
Ok. This answers Hypnogogues point about blindsight or unconscious actions. If microphenomenalism is true then there may be no unconscious actions or reactions, as you suggest. But you are still saying that matter gives rise to consciousness, which disqualifies you from my choir.

Then you definitely DON'T "understand me right". The brain is an organ that enhances an entities ability to detect, store and USE information. Consciousness is NOT the brain but the RESULTS of the brain's functionality.
But in that case consiousness is something different to brain.

And, while I know what "behaviorism" is, I'm not sure I understand what you are suggesting when using the word when discussing consciousness. Remember, "behavior" is basically a RESPONSE that can be either "reflexive" (hence, "primitive") or "creative" {"advanced"). Thus the reptilian brain has been "overgrown" by higher cognitive capacities that give us "free will" ...INTENTIONALITY.
You suggested that we can understand consciousness by noting that stimulating neurons can give rise to laughter. This is a behaviourist (black box) approach to consciousness that leaves out 'seeming' and 'feeling' and therefore ex hypothesis it cannot explain consciousness.

BTW 'intentionality' has been redefined in consciousness studies as 'aboutness' rather than as relating to teleology and purpose. This is a pity imho but it's the way it is.

Please say again.
If consciousness is brain then psychology and neuroscience are the same discipline.

And it would be EVEN BETTER if something I say inspires someone with a much better "left brain" than mine to "prove something" through mathematics or logic (the latter of course being hopeless).
I agree that nothing can be proved about reality (as opposed to contingent existence)by any method including mathematics. However that doesn't prevent us using logic to narrow down the possible true answers to just one, or prevent us from knowing it's true.

My theories thus far -- for the record -- are: (1) consciousness, the product of information exchange;
If consciousness is a product, and not the exchange itself, then what is consciousness?

We need to study both to maximize each. [/B]
What do you mean by 'both' here? I thought you were saying that they were the same thing. Any attempt to argue that consciousness is physical runs into these problems.
 
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  • #213
Originally posted by Mentat
But, if one can redefine[/color] "subjective experience" as a physical process of the brain, then why should there be an explanatory gap at all?
The identity[/color] ("can redefine"...) you're advocating is not a scientific model/theory of the phenomenon but an approach, or strategy how to build a model/theory. It has no predictive or explanatory power -- it is an empty scientific model.

To advance from your strategy on how to build a model ("can redefine"[/color]) to the actual scientific model ("actually define"[/color]) you would have to produce, effectively, a list containing in the left column all conceivable configuration of matter and fields and in the right column, for each row, all direct experiences which are associated with that configuration. Thus, even as a mere strategy, it is a strategy for the most simple-minded brute force catalogue of the phenomena. It is not even strategy for building a theory.

Calling "identity approach" a theory or explanation of consciousness would be like calling a statement "for each planet there is a specific period and a specific orbit" a theory explaining planetary motion. It is merely an expression of "feeling" that there is some lawfulness/pattern in the phenomena. Without specifying what exactly that pattern is it is no better than caveman's conjecture that gods are showing stars in heavens -- he merely senses some pattern there and can't say anything more about it.
The "intentional stance" is basically a scientific principle, stated in philosophical terms, it is the anti-mysticism. Basically, if something meets all of the physical qualifications for a particular phenomenon, then the phenomenon is occurring. If something meets all of the physical qualifications for life, then it is alive, and there is nothing metaphysical to add to it. If something meets all of the physical qualifications of being conscious[/color], then it is conscious, and there is nothing mystical to add to it.
The verbal smokescreen above is in the hazy phrase "all the physical qualifications" -- what are they? How long would such list be? What is the right side of the identity for each physical configuration -- just 1 word "consciousness" (?) or "experiences red" or "experiences bright red" or "experiences bright red in the upper left"... ... ?
... then it is conscious, and there is nothing mystical to add to it.
Provided some day this mushy idea for a possible strategy on how to begin approaching the construction of a "theory of consciousness" finally materializes into an actual theory which can answer, for any configuration of atoms and fields submitted, "what is it exactly like to be such configuration," i.e. what are the specific experiences that such configuration has (if any).
 
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  • #214
Originally posted by Canute
The contents of consciousness is whatever one is conscious of at any moment. That may be a memory, but it will be many other things as well.
Please help me tease out the distinctions between what is meant by "being conscious." In fact, let us turn to AHD (American Heritage Dictionary):

Conscious: Adj. 1. a. having an awarenes of one's own existence, sensation and thoughts and of one's environment ...as in "injured by conscious"; b. capable of thought, will or perception ..as in "Man is a conscious being. 2. subjectively known or felt ...as in "conscious remorse". 3. intentionally conceived or done; deliberate ...as "a conscious insult. 4. Having or showing self-consciousness; aware ..as in "conscious of his shortcomings. Noun: from psychoanalysis: the component of waking awareness perceptible by an individual at any given moment; consciousness. [Lat. conscius, meaning "knowing with others; com-, together + scire, to know.]

Thus, an entity could be a "conscious being" even when it is "unconscious". This is one part of the distinction. The other is that while an entity might not "be aware" of detecting or responding to incoming information above a certain "threshhold" of "awareness" -- such as "not conscious of" one's own motives in doing something ...or all the noise around one when one is concentrating on something interesting -- AT SOME LEVEL the entity is detecting and responding to incoming that incoming information.

My proposal is that "consciousness" -- at it's most basic -- is the "detecting and response to" information ...whether that information is the positive charge of a proton which the electron detects and responds to ...or the relative masses of two bodies mediated via gravity that "tells them" where to "be" with regard to one another.

I am contending that "consciousness" is on a "continuum" from very simple to very complex, depending on WHAT an "entity" (which would include an electron, bug or planet) is capable of SENSING and the complexity of its repertoire of RESPONSES.

I especially like -- in AHD's definition -- the ROOT of the word "conscious" ...that is "knowing with others". Since there is nothing (that I can think of) within the "physical domain" that DOESN'T detect and respond to SOMETHING ...everything is "conscious" of something ...and SOMEthings are "conscious" of more things than others.

However, I agree that the element of an entity's giving "meaning" might be one way of identifying "higher" systems of consciousness ...except that I just watched a documentary on FLEAS! last night that said that when fleas see a slowly flashing light in front of them, that they make that "mean" that an ANIMAL IS PASSING By ...and so jump for it! Thus, it is INTERPRETATION of incoming data -- as in detecting a certain wavelength and interpreting it as "red" -- might be part of the consciousness process ...at whatever "level" it is operating.

Unfortunately for me, I must leave off here ...but will be back to respond to the rest of your post...


Defining 'meaning' in the abstract is a difficult problem...
 
  • #215
Dictionary definitions of consciousness are invariably woolly. (Not one of my dictionaries of science and philsophy even risks giving a definition). One famous (current) dictionary entry on consciousness ends with the statement 'nothing worth reading has been written about it'.

In science there is no agreed definition. This is for technical reasons, namely that consciousness cannot be defined scientifically. In consciousness studies 'experience' or 'what it is like to be' is used. This is the best definition since it is widely agreed that this is what needs to be explained.

You can see that by these definitions information exchange doesn't help explain it. That isn't to say that IE isn't an important issue, but saying that consciousness is caused by IE is no different to saying it is caused by brain.

It is one thing to say that consciousness is necessary for IE to take place, or that IE is always accompanied by consciousness, but this does not explain why or how IE gives rise to consciousness. (Unless you're suggesting that consiousness is identical to IE, in which case you face the same problems as those who say it is identical with brain).

Interesting about fleas. So scientific research suggests that they might be conscious after all, just like lay folk thought was bleedin' obvious already. No doubt science will soon be able to prove that humans are conscious as well, as soon as it solves the problem of defining what it's talking about.
 
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  • #216
Originally posted by hypnagogue
But response and interaction with our world are not sufficient conditions for consciousness.
But this is only because "we" say so. If we allowed for consciousness to be fundamental to the Universe as a product of the intrinsic sense and response mechanism of the System ...then it WOULD be "sufficient".

And then we would understand that "consciousness" is a matter of "degrees" based on what CAN be "sensed" by an entity -- particle or galaxy or anything in between -- and what options (that is, level of "free will") that the entity has at it's disposal.

Might we not be being anthropocentric in RECOGNIZING "consciousness" only when it resembles OURS?


I find it curious that you entertain this as an example of some nonbiological system that might be conscious, when we could just as well "make something do what we want to do," ie go against its own normal behavior patterns, and go and seek out some particular type of object in the environment, by building a suitable robot. But it seems to me that you refuse to give a robot as much consideration as a candidate for consciousness as you would to a bundle of photons.
Not true. I am an Equal Opportunity Panpsychist! To whatever extent the robots "senses" its environment and "chooses" what to DO ...then, to that extent it is CONSCIOUS!

Again, the conceivability argument is just another way of reflecting how consciousness is epistemologically and ontologically distinct from 'ordinary' physical phenomena. Simply put, we cannot rationally imagine a world physically identical to ours where H2O molecules do not combine to form water, but we can rationally imagine a world physically identical to ours where the neurons of a human brain do not combine to form consciousness.
Why bother to imagine another Universe when we have THIS one to think about? Anyway -- if all the "ingredients, processes and forces" were the same in an identical Universe -- then it seems to follow that "results" would be the same ...but just as I am NOT a proponent of pre-determinism, I do not believe it WOULD turn out EXACTLY the same. HOWEVER, I think that -- since the PROCESS of "consciousness" would be "present" in "BOTH" Univereses -- each Universe WOULD give rise to "higher consciousness" ...tho it might look and function differently from "the brain".

And, lest I forget, the "process" WOULD yeild "consciousness" via "ordinary physical phenomena".

Will address the balance of this post later, starting with (for MY benefit)...

The reason this is relevant is that it illustrates a fundamental difference in the way we understand and can explain consciousness...
 
  • #217
Originally posted by M. Gaspar
You see, we don't know of all the "sensory appartus" that may be at our disposal -- and, in fact, being USED. Obviously, these people are "sensing" and "responding to" SOMETHING and thereby "conscious" of it whether they know it or not!

[...]

But this is only because "we" say so. If we allowed for consciousness to be fundamental to the Universe as a product of the intrinsic sense and response mechanism of the System ...then it WOULD be "sufficient".

This is not at all a desirable way to look at the problem. Your formulation amounts to redefining what we are trying to analyze, so that ultimately we are not addressing the issue we want to address, which is qualitative, experiential, subjective awareness. If there is not subjective experience, there is not consciousness in the relevant sense of this discussion. There is no good basis for saying that unconscious information processing (eg blindsight) is really conscious, and furthermore such an assertion only distracts our attention from the real issue we are trying to address.

Consciousness, as it has been discussed in this thread, is a phenomenon of qualitative, subjective experience. This amounts to saying that there must be something to be experienced from the 1st person point of view in order for a phenomenon to qualify as consciousness. If a phenomenon is not accompanied by a 1st person experience (eg as in blindight), then it does not count as consciousness. This is a basic, foundational point accepted in all serious consciousness literature and discussion, and it should be accepted here as well. Again, if what you are talking about does not fit this definition, then although it may be a topic worth discussing separately, it is not 'consciousness' as the word has been used throughout this thread, nor is it 'consciousness' as the word is used just about everywhere else.

Why bother to imagine another Universe when we have THIS one to think about?

I have already explained several times why the 'metaphysical' argument is directly relevant to this universe we find ourselves in. Please see one of my past explanations.

Anyway -- if all the "ingredients, processes and forces" were the same in an identical Universe -- then it seems to follow that "results" would be the same

Again, the argument goes that it is conceivable that there be a universe physically identical to ours that is devoid of consciousness. The implication is that whatever is responsible for consciousness in this universe, it is at least partially 'non-physical' in nature.
 
  • #218
Originally posted by hypnagogue
...The reason this is relevant is that it illustrates a fundamental difference in the way we understand and can explain consciousness vis a vis classical physical objects, and this in turn has ontological consequences-- it tells us something about how the world must actually be.

And "how" the Universe may actually "be" is "an Eternal Entity of Energy that's Experiencing Itself Evolving. The "mechanics" that may be "generating consciousness" is the "Information Exchange System(s)". When "storage" reaches a critical level, a "higher level" of understanding one's environment (...and by "environment" I mean 100% of everything that is happening to each entity at any point in time and by "understanding" I mean a "Gestaldt" of the "collective experience" of each system that permits a more complex interpretation of incoming information.

The "higher" the awareness ...the more "free will" ...that is, the more possible RESPONSES. Perhaps -- at that "moment" -- an entity would have the quality of "reflection" -- which submits what it "remembers" to its current real-time experiences ...whereby INTERPRETATION takes place at "higher level" (wider ranger of stimuli to interpret; complexity ) which is the door-way to MEANING!

I'll be back to continue responding to your pg. 18 post at this point (tho I'm anxious to reply to your post above this one, but it's about 6 posts "away"; I don't want to skip anything.)...

Once we accept the axioms of materialism ...

Short reply: Matter is a form of Energy. It's all the same stuff in a self-sustaining process. My proposal fits within the functions of physicality; in fact, its sort of dependent on it.
 
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  • #219
Hmm. Isn't the net energy of the universe equal to zero?
 
  • #220
Originally posted by Canute
Hmm. Isn't the net energy of the universe equal to zero?

I don't know what this means? Is it that the energy available and the work being done cancel each other out? Whatever the case -- and by whatever manner of computation yeilds a "net energy of zero" -- I know you can't be implying that there is "no energy" in the Universe. Too much going on, don't you think?
 
  • #221
Originally posted by hypnagogue
... Once we accept the axioms of materialism, we can show that H2O molecules form water by logical necessity, but we cannot show an analogous logically necessary link between the physical world as we understand it and consciousness, even in principle. This suggests that the model of the world put forth by materialism is insufficient to account for consciousness. If materialism/physicalism/mechanism were sufficient to explain consciousness, then we should be able to produce an argument showing how consciousness follows from their assumptions by logical necessity. If we cannot theoretically derive consciousness from these theoretical models of reality even in principle, this suggests that if the world really were as these models of reality state it is, then consciousness would not exist. But, of course, consciousness does exist. So these models must be fundamentally inadequate depictions of the world, as they have nothing meaningful to say about consciousness.
That is correct: something is missing. And I am proposing what it is: that the basic sensing and responding to information within and among all PHYSICAL SYSTEMS give rise to consciousness based on complexity of detection systems, storage and response. This is how physicality gives rise to consciousness: as systems develop more complex and accute sensing systems -- and can "remember" previous info -- an interplay of prior and current experiences can take place. This is a form of "reflection" which might "elevate" what was once simple "perception" into "meaning generation".

Because I see this possibility as a potentially SUCCESSFUL "reductive explanation of consciousness" ...I feel I can continue to discuss it here. If you feel otherwise at any time, I will fledge the nest ...but right now my little musings are happy here.

For a detailed discussion of the explanatory gap, please see the paper http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/philosophie/personen/beckermann/broad_ew.pdf, by Ansgar Beckermann. It is a bit of a lengthy read (14 pages), but perhaps after reading it you will come to a fuller appreciation for why the explanatory gap cannot be so easily shaken off. (This paper includes a refutation of the notion that simply equating qualitative properties with physical processes makes for a successful reductive/physical explanation.)

I look forward to reading this and the last 12-pager you recommended since nothing YOU have said thus far has -- as yet -- deterred me from my proposal.


I am, however, daunted by the length of the post I am trying to respond to.
 
  • #222
Ok, it it obvious that we have crossed lines here again, I am not sure you understand exacly what it is i am saying, unless you are simply claiming that what i am saying cannot be.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Again, the conceivability argument is just another way of reflecting how consciousness is epistemologically and ontologically distinct from 'ordinary' physical phenomena. Simply put, we cannot rationally imagine a world physically identical to ours where H2O molecules do not combine to form water, but we can rationally imagine a world physically identical to ours where the neurons of a human brain do not combine to form consciousness.

So i will say that I disagree entirley with the concievability argument. What i am trying to say is that I cannot concieve of a world which is physicaly identical to ours inwhich neuronal activity does not produce consiousness. Just as H2O creates water, so does the thing that stops a thing from being physics and turns it into biology create consiousness. MAKE consiousness. CONSTITUTES consciousness. My argument is that it IS a logical neccesity.

From the 3rd person view, there is no problem: we excite some neurons, we observe laughter. There is a clear causal connection. But that is not the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is traversing the gap from the 3rd person view to the 1st person view. In your example, we can observe the person's laughter, but we cannot observe his qualitative sense of comedy. We can explain his laughter as observed from the 3rd person view via a functional explanation: the activation of certain neurons leads to the activation of other neurons, and eventually motor neurons are activated which fully account for the characteristic motor behaviors of spastic breathing and smiling facial expression. But this functional 3rd person explanation cannot explain why the person subjectively experienced humor from his 1st person view.

I am trying to say that that IS the subjective experience of the person.

Sure energy and matter can be conditioned. In fact, in principle we can explain a person's behavioral conditioning (response and interaction with his environment) entirely in terms of matter and energy-- that is, in terms of the plasticity of his neurons, and their physical adaptation and rewiring as a function of environmental inputs. Neurons that adapt as such change their net computational processing, which in turn changes one's behavioral patterns. That is a clear-cut and conceptually complete example of matter being conditioned and changing in response to its environment, and still we have no indication whatsoever of consciousness in our explanitory model.

You are talking about biology. My claim was that you cannot condition physics. I am not talking about anything with any form of biological plasticity, I am well aware of neuronal conditioning. I am asking you to try and condition an electron.

M. Gasper, yes, of course it all follows the laws of physics. information transfer? communication between the diffrent sub atomic particles so they all know where they are meant to be going/ doing etc? Maybe, but its irrelivant to this. even if they are, and you want to call that consiousness, it dosent change the fact that biology neccesarily gives rise to conscious experience, which is diffrent from consiousness.

Hypno, your argument against the CR stance is one that is similar to the CPU objection, i will describe it once i find the paper.

I can't find the Malcolm paper online, but i will give you its title:

"Knowledge of Other minds" byt Norman Malcolm
 
  • #223
Originally posted by Dark Wing
So i will say that I disagree entirley with the concievability argument. What i am trying to say is that I cannot concieve of a world which is physicaly identical to ours inwhich neuronal activity does not produce consiousness. Just as H2O creates water, so does the thing that stops a thing from being physics and turns it into biology create consiousness. MAKE consiousness. CONSTITUTES consciousness. My argument is that it IS a logical neccesity.

Do you say it's inconceivable because you have actually reasoned it out step by step, or do you say that from loyalty to a prior metaphysical commitment you have already made?

Again-- please see the Beckermann paper I referenced for a clear explanation why H2O/water is not analagous to neurons/consciousness. There are principled reasons for believing that this is the case, rather than taking one position or another a priori.

I am trying to say that that IS the subjective experience of the person.

We can observe a brain from the 3rd person view; you claim that the brain is subjective experience; so we should be able to observe another's subjective experience from the 3rd person view. How do you account for the fact that there is nothing "experiential" to be observed in a bunch of neurons? I'm just not satisfied by this approach. If you tell me the bunch of neurons just ARE experiential nonetheless, I suppose I could equally just as well tell you that my dog just IS the moon, even though you could never tell by observing him. I don't mean to sound silly or anything, but if you so straightforwardly connect the brain and consciousness, there should be simple ramifications for our abilities to directly observe the subjective experiences of others that just don't hold.

Basically: how do you take into account the seemingly obvious ontological differences between consciousness and brain if one is quite literally just the other?

You are talking about biology. My claim was that you cannot condition physics. I am not talking about anything with any form of biological plasticity, I am well aware of neuronal conditioning. I am asking you to try and condition an electron.

What does it mean to condition an electron?

Hypno, your argument against the CR stance is one that is similar to the CPU objection, i will describe it once i find the paper.

I can't find the Malcolm paper online, but i will give you its title:

"Knowledge of Other minds" byt Norman Malcolm

OK, thanks, I'll look for it.
 
  • #224
Originally posted by M. Gaspar
That is correct: something is missing. And I am proposing what it is: that the basic sensing and responding to information within and among all PHYSICAL SYSTEMS give rise to consciousness based on complexity of detection systems, storage and response. This is how physicality gives rise to consciousness: as systems develop more complex and accute sensing systems -- and can "remember" previous info -- an interplay of prior and current experiences can take place. This is a form of "reflection" which might "elevate" what was once simple "perception" into "meaning generation".

This argument has no legs to stand on if you try to present it as a reductive explanation in a materialistic framework. Information whirls around, it all gets terribly complex, and then-- ta da!-- consciousness magically emerges from the complexity.

The problem is we have no reason to suppose that complex information flow should somehow result in consciousness in a materialistic framework. Why should it? It does not follow from materialism that this should be the case; in fact, if anything such a hypothesis is unintelligible underneath a materialistic paradigm.

I think you have recognized this elsewhere and presented the basic metaphysical assumption that consciousness exists fundamentally alongside information. Given this assertion, it certainly does become at least intelligible that complex human consciousness should arise purely from information flow in the brain. However, this metaphysical assumption that makes your hypothesis intelligible simultaneously makes your explanation of consciousness non-reductive. Instead of explaining how consciousness arises from physical things/processes, you instead grant it the status of a fundamental, contingent entity in your ontology, and thus no reduction is necessary or attempted.

(Perhaps you could explain 'higher human consciousness' in your framework reductively with reference to your fundamental consciousness/information identity, but the point is that somewhere along the line you have conceded that you cannot carry on the reduction any longer, and you simply accept that consciousness in some form exists fundamentally in the universe, and cannot be explained in terms of anything else. This, again, is the antithesis of a reductive explanation of consciousness.)
 
  • #225
Originally posted by hypnagogue
Do you say it's inconceivable because you have actually reasoned it out step by step, or do you say that from loyalty to a prior metaphysical commitment you have already made?

Yes there is a reasoned process, ignoring previous metaphysical commitments. It is the reasoned process of the identity theory argument, which I have tried to explain, but obviously cannot, so I will instead refer you to "Is consciousness a Brain Process?" by U.T. Place, and "Sensations and Brain Processes" by J.J.C. Smart. They will address everything you have mentioned that I have not been able to adequately reply to. I am sorry.

We can observe a brain from the 3rd person view; you claim that the brain is subjective experience; so we should be able to observe another's subjective experience from the 3rd person view. How do you account for the fact that there is nothing "experiential" to be observed in a bunch of neurons? I'm just not satisfied by this approach.

Oh come on, surely you can see the difference. you may observe the act of someone having a subjective experience, sure. You are witnessing brain activity, are you not? and what IS a subjective experience if it is not our own sensory organs processing information? so yes, you may observe it easily. doesn’t mean you are having the same experience by observation as they are having personally. I hope that’s not what you are leading to.

If you tell me the bunch of neurons just ARE experiential nonetheless, I suppose I could equally just as well tell you that my dog just IS the moon, even though you could never tell by observing him. I don't mean to sound silly or anything, but if you so straightforwardly connect the brain and consciousness, there should be simple ramifications for our abilities to directly observe the subjective experiences of others that just don't hold.

And what ramifications do you suppose these are? I can tell you that when a certain neuron is firing, then you are observing a certain oblique line. I can also tell you that when a certain neuron is firing, you will be experiencing pleasure, laughter, and pain. I can predict these things, and even stimulate them to make you have that subjective experience. you can’t look inside a brain, and have their experience by observation. But I believe there will be a time when we know what every neuron does, and what its consequence both conscious and subconscious is. the work is already well underway. What kind of observation do you want? If one can do all of the above, and even rewire it to make a different sensation, then is that evidence enough for you? Prediction ability of a neuron firing: is that evidence of observation enough of you?

As for as your dog being the moon, but you can't tell by observation,: if you think a claim to consciousness to the brain has any resemblance to that kind of analogy, then you have seriously mistaken all that I have said, by fault of my own for not explaining myself clearly. I am sorry for that. please read the above papers, I think you will find them interesting, and a better exposition on what I am trying to say.

Basically: how do you take into account the seemingly obvious ontological differences between consciousness and brain if one is quite literally just the other?

there does not need to be any ontological differences here. we are simply thinking about it in the wrong way. you could almost think of consciousness as a talent, or an ability, one that we have in virtue of our biology. If someone has amazing ability to play an instrument, you do not say they have music in a literal sense, just that they show an ability to do something. we have the ability to 'do' consciousness, if you will, we do not "have" consciousness. It’s just not that kind of thing. (IMO)

What does it mean to condition an electron?

to make it behave contrary to its normal behavior. to make it react in opposition to the laws that usually hold it to be in a normal case. You can condition a cell away from heat, or to react in different ways to different stimuli. you cannot do that with an electron. If you want a definition of consciousness to be the ability to react and interact with the environment (which is what I am proposing, as a basic 1st premise) then this ability to condition is very important.
 
  • #226
Originally posted by Dark Wing What kind of observation do you want? If one can do all of the above, and even rewire it to make a different sensation, then is that evidence enough for you? Prediction ability of a neuron firing: is that evidence of observation enough of you?
It seems to me that what you have described is a correlation between brain and consciousness. In my mind, this is not the same things as explaining consciousness. Showing a correlation doesn't tell us anything about why one necessarily creates the other.

As for as your dog being the moon, but you can't tell by observation,: if you think a claim to consciousness to the brain has any resemblance to that kind of analogy,
Not having met Hypnagogue's dog, I can't really say how correlated his dog is to the moon. Maybe his dog howls at all full moons? Rather than explain why, he can just say his dog is the moon based on this correlation. The correlation is all he would have to show to make his analogy work because that is all you have done.


If someone has amazing ability to play an instrument, you do not say they have music in a literal sense, just that they show an ability to do something. we have the ability to 'do' consciousness, if you will, we do not "have" consciousness. It’s just not that kind of thing.

Except that playing an instrument can be reductively explained and having the ability to do consciouness cannot.
 
  • #227
The scientific proof of the existence of the soul (and of God)

The basic hypothesis of materialism is that consciousness is a property of matter. This hypothesis is however denied by our present scientific knowledges about matter and brain.
Read why Quantum Electrodyamics proves the failure of materialism on the following site

http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/fedeescienza/englishnf

and let's discuss my arguments here.

Marco Biagini,

Ph.D. graduated in Solid State Physics.
 
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  • #228
Originally posted by Fliption
It seems to me that what you have described is a correlation between brain and consciousness. In my mind, this is not the same things as explaining consciousness. Showing a correlation doesn't tell us anything about why one necessarily creates the other.

You want to bring this down to correlation? i am trying to argue that there is no correlation, as what you are talking about in trying to correlate these things are one and the same. in reality, the the higher level thing you are trying to correlate down does not actually exsist. one thing does not create the other. there is just the one thing: brain activity. end of story. we have no reason to suppose that there is anything other than that in exsistance, except this dire need to hang onto old time folk theory that there must be a mind. believing in consiousness as a correlatable (?) substance or event is just silly.

Not having met Hypnagogue's dog, I can't really say how correlated his dog is to the moon. Maybe his dog howls at all full moons? Rather than explain why, he can just say his dog is the moon based on this correlation. The correlation is all he would have to show to make his analogy work because that is all you have done.

it is not correlation. it is a diffrent way of looking at the scenario through physical cause and effect. that's it. no correlation. I am not trying to correlate. i am trying to see if its possible to redefine.

Except that playing an instrument can be reductively explained and having the ability to do consciouness cannot.

playing an instrument: not just playing, but explaining why some people have an innate sense to it that others do not: can be reductivly explained, can it? it seems to me that an innate sense of musicality that makes the greats the best in the world is very similar to this innate sense we all have that is consciousness. so if you want to reductivly explain innate musical ability, surley you must think that a reductive explanation of consciouness must at least be able to be reaserched. i will come back and give a run down of place's paper for you all so you undersatand what i mean by "is", as i am obviously not explaining myself properly.
 
  • #229
Originally posted by Dark Wing
You want to bring this down to correlation? i am trying to argue that there is no correlation, as what you are talking about in trying to correlate these things are one and the same. in reality, the the higher level thing you are trying to correlate down does not actually exsist. one thing does not create the other. there is just the one thing: brain activity. end of story.


There is a very compelling argument in philosophy (and it has been presented here clearly by hypnagogue) that says consciousness cannot be accounted for by the current material ontology. And this includes the brain. You cannot just assert that these things are the same things. You have to make a case for it. And it seems clear to me that you have tried to do so by showing correlations. It appears that showing correlations is all that can be done with the current materialists assumptions. How can you assert that mind and brain are the same if you have not correlated them in some way?

we have no reason to suppose that there is anything other than that in exsistance, except this dire need to hang onto old time folk theory that there must be a mind. believing in consiousness as a correlatable (?) substance or event is just silly.

Dire need to hang onto old time folk theory? You obviously don't have a grasp of the problem here. It seems as if you have preconceived notions about this topic and that's what you're responding to. I personally couldn't care less about any of these folk conceptions. I see a legimate problem that cannot just be swept away by re-defining/ignoring it.


it is not correlation. it is a diffrent way of looking at the scenario through physical cause and effect. that's it. no correlation. I am not trying to correlate. i am trying to see if its possible to redefine.

A re-definition still has to be based on something. If you're view isn't based on correlation then it's nothing more than a guess. I can just as easily claim that consciousness IS the same as my keyboard. And since my keyboard can be reductively explained, so can consciousness. Why should I have to correlate my keyboard with my mind somehow to do this? Can't I just assert that they are the same thing, therefore no correlation is possible?

playing an instrument: not just playing, but explaining why some people have an innate sense to it that others do not: can be reductivly explained, can it? it seems to me that an innate sense of musicality that makes the greats the best in the world is very similar to this innate sense we all have that is consciousness. so if you want to reductivly explain innate musical ability, surley you must think that a reductive explanation of consciouness must at least be able to be reaserched.


The ability to do music can easily be explained, in principal with brain activity. We can even program computers to do this with our current technology. Yet, there is no purposefully conscious computer that I know of. We wouldn't even know how to make one conscious because we don't reductively understand consciousness.

It is obvious that some computers(people) may do a better job of composing music than others. This can easily be explained by showing that some computers(people) just have better musical software(musical brains).

Even then, whether someone has amazing musical ability or not is a highly subjective determination. This is not the case with consciousness. We either have it or we don't. If you cannot see why this analogy doesn't work, then you cannot see the problem that Hypnagogue has posted. Unless you're a lucky person, you cannot solve the problem until you have grasped it.
 
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  • #230
Originally posted by Fliption
There is a very compelling argument in philosophy (and it has been presented here clearly by hypnagogue) that says consciousness cannot be accounted for by the current material ontology. And this includes the brain. You cannot just assert that these things are the same things. You have to make a case for it. And it seems clear to me that you have tried to do so by showing correlations. It appears that showing correlations is all that can be done with the current materialists assumptions. How can you assert that mind and brain are the same if you have not correlated them in some way?

This problem you are talking about is only involved in one sector of current materialistic ontology. and that side is those who take the top down approach, by presuming that consciousness is this thing that ellicits explaining in the 1st place.

This is what i am trying to say. it is not part of the materialistic ontology that has been talked about so far, but from another sector of materialism that is not so popular at the moment, one that dennett and searle do not cover, one that none of the philosophers including chalmers mentions here. materialsm is not restricted to these people. it is a very wide ontology.

what i am trying to say is that you cannot even have consciousness, or conscious experience if you do not have contact to the world. what does our biology do? allow us to interact and react to our world. there is nothing more to consiousness than that. and yes, i do believe that some things can be more conscious than others. easily. it all depends on how many levels we can interact with our world on: the more levels, the more consciousness, as far as i am concerned.

So you start with the basics. bottom up. we have physics. a certian configuration of the right kind of atomic structure and you have biology. This biology, at the smallest level, has the ability to react in many ways to the same stimulus. what happnes from there? it gets more and more complex, until we get the level of complex interaction that we humans have, this interaction we call consiousness. there is nothing more to it than that in my opinion. if you want to say that this is outside materialistic ontology, then fine, say that. but there is no reduction as we are not reducing anything. we are only looking at what the body is doing, and watching the method it uses to achieve its ends, and then we sit back and say "hey, that has to be more than just a brain reaction, i felt somthing there" really? there is mopre to you than the physical being? there is more to your feeling and reaction to the world than a combination of your history and memory (both genetic and your own)? and is there more to your experience than what you perceieve through your biological organs, including your brain? i am simply saying that if you think there is more to it than that, then yes you are outside the materialistic realm, because you are dealing with a substance that we cannot see even in the subatomic region. all materialism wants to say in its broadest sense is that there is nothing about concsiousness that cannot be explained by physics. in other words, there is no mysitical substance or process that is making us conscious. we may not have figured out the exact process that is is play yet, and we may not be able to explain it to people as well as they like yet, but it is a reaserch paradigm that has been set up for investigation, and its very presumptuious to disregard it on the grounds that have been presented. that is all i am saying. taken from a bottom up prespectivem there is no correlation as there is nothing to correlate. there is only physical action.

The ability to do music can easily be explained, in principal with brain activity. We can even program computers to do this with our current technology. Yet, there is no purposefully conscious computer that I know of. We wouldn't even know how to make one conscious because we don't reductively understand consciousness.

the way they are trying it with AI these days: to try and semanticly map the mind so they can write it in a computer: won't work as they still have no way of connecting to the real world. we don't reductivly understand consiousness because no one is looking into it properly at the moment, and every one seems intent on ignoring all the steps taken in neuropsycology in preference to this stupid computer annolgy of the mind. we need a new way of looking at things because everyone is stuck on this top down idea, and claiming that a bottom up idea is logically impossible as it misses consciousness up the top, when what they are actually looking at IS consciousness, and its not what they thought it was going to be. if consciousness can be taken to a physical level, then people feel ripped off, as they don't want to think they are simply a hysical machiene, it would take some form of humanity away from them.

It is obvious that some computers(people) may do a better job of composing music than others. This can easily be explained by showing that some computers(people) just have better musical software(musical brains).

so you are willing to say that computers are better at things as they have better software, but humans won't have somthing better due to a better balance in their brains?? what makes a human better at somthing if it is not their physicalness? and what is consciousness if it is not somthing physically built in the system? if you don't want consciousness to be physical, then what is it? it can't be energy, even energyis physical. we live in a closed physical system. if its not materialisticly explainable, then how is it explainable? or is it somthing better left in the great unknown cause its too damn hard to think about now? what should we do? stop looking for causal reaction in the brain? stop studying the physical system for its reaction? give up the whole of a materialstic look at the mind and neuro chemistry, simply because it looks like that its logically impossible for consciousness to be (heaven forbid) a biological process that helps us interact with our world?

Even then, whether someone has amazing musical ability or not is a highly subjective determination. This is not the case with consciousness. We either have it or we don't. If you cannot see why this analogy doesn't work, then you cannot see the problem that Hypnagogue has posted. Unless you're a lucky person, you cannot solve the problem until you have grasped it.

Why does consciousness need to be a "all or none" deal where are you then going to draw the line? do insects have consiousness? what animal does? what animal does not? how are you going to tell? are you going to say that some things are just automata? if so, then are we just automata? how can you draw a line for consciousness, and what are going to be your boundaries for it? i don't actually see the problem, as i don't see an explanatary gap at all. there dosent need to be one. there only needs to be one if you start to ignore the materialstic nature of what it could be.
 
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  • #231
Originally posted by Dark Wing
i don't actually see the problem, as i don't see an explanatary gap at all. there dosent need to be one. there only needs to be one if you start to ignore the materialstic nature of what it could be.

But there is nothing in the materialistic model that consciousness could be.

Again, the suggestion is not to abandon research on the brain and how it relates to consciousness. The suggestion is that our conceptual model (materialism) is insufficient to account for consciousness, and so our conceptual model needs reworking. If the actual brain fully accounts for consciousness, then there is something about the actual brain that is not accounted for in our materialistic model of the brain.

If a given phenomenon is entirely materialistic in nature, all of its aspects should be entirely observable via 3rd person investigation. Thus, if consciousness is entirely embodied by our materialist model of the brain, all of its aspects should be observable via neuroscience. But in fact none of the 1st person aspects of consciousness are observable via neuroscience. Unless you expect neuroscience to someday find qualia literally sitting around in the brain, you have the meaty problem of explaining how it is that there are certain aspects to material reality that cannot be observed even in principle.

Notice that I say "aspects"; so say we take it for granted that neuron system A engaged in activity B literally is pain. Well, in observing A we do not detect qualitative pain; we only detect objective measurements of neurons firing. It follows that there is an aspect to A that we are not detecting in our observation, one that we cannot detect even in principle. How is it that this can be the case in a materialist ontology? Under materialism, we should be able to detect any aspect of any phenomenon that objectively exists, at least in principle, should we not?
 
  • #232
Originally posted by Dark Wing
if consciousness can be taken to a physical level, then people feel ripped off, as they don't want to think they are simply a hysical machiene, it would take some form of humanity away from them.

This quote above doesn't seem relevant. There are good philosophical arguments being presented here. What people "want" shouldn't be mentioned unless the arguments are obviously weak. At this point, I'd point to the "consciousness doesn't exists" argument as a more likely candidate for wishful thinking in order to preserve a particular view. But I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt by reading and considering these arguments.

so you are willing to say that computers are better at things as they have better software, but humans won't have somthing better due to a better balance in their brains??
No, I am perfectly willing to say that and in fact did say it. Musical ability can be explained reductively, in principle, with brain stuff. A person can be more musically talented than another person and this fact can, in principle, be explained reductively. This is why IMO, it is not analogous to consciousness.

what makes a human better at somthing if it is not their physicalness? and what is consciousness if it is not somthing physically built in the system?

So you're going to use you're current world view and ontology to argue the insanity of a different ontology? This is like asking a dishonest tax payer to audit his own returns.

if you don't want consciousness to be physical, then what is it? it can't be energy, even energyis physical. we live in a closed physical system. if its not materialisticly explainable, then how is it explainable? or is it somthing better left in the great unknown cause its too damn hard to think about now? what should we do? stop looking for causal reaction in the brain? stop studying the physical system for its reaction? give up the whole of a materialstic look at the mind and neuro chemistry, simply because it looks like that its logically impossible for consciousness to be (heaven forbid) a biological process that helps us interact with our world?

This has slowly turned into a discussion of materialism and I'm not sure that's where this needs to go. I for one don't think we need to get into vague terms like "physical" to have this discussion. No one is suggesting that you have to change everything about your worldview. What is being discussed is whether consciousness should be added to the list of fundamental elements of nature. Nothing more. Whether these fundamental elements are considered "physical" or not seems irrelevant to me. I'm not sure what Hynagogue would think. I think Hypnagogue used the term materialism as way to identify the current view that needed to be tweaked. I don't think his main point was to state an opinion on materialism in general versus all it's alternatives. Hypnagogue can correct me if I've misunderstood.

(Bottomline: I'd just really hate to see this thread get into the very sloppy arguments around something being physical or not. See all my particpation in the "materialism" threads to get an idea of how messy and unproductive that would be.)

where are you then going to draw the line? do insects have consiousness? what animal does? what animal does not? how are you going to tell? are you going to say that some things are just automata? if so, then are we just automata? how can you draw a line for consciousness, and what are going to be your boundaries for it?
Consciousness has been defined in this thread very specifically. The line can be drawn at the point where "it is like something to be" the object in question. So the question of whether it exists in insects etc., and to what extent it exists, is not a issue of semantics and fuzzy terms. It is a practical issue of being able to detect consciousness. Which, by the way, is more a problem for anyone arguing that consciousness can be reductively explained. See Hypnagogue's response above for more on that.
 
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  • #233
hypnagogue: thankyou for your patience, it is really appreciated.

Notice that I say "aspects"; so say we take it for granted that neuron system A engaged in activity B literally is pain. Well, in observing A we do not detect qualitative pain; we only detect objective measurements of neurons firing. It follows that there is an aspect to A that we are not detecting in our observation, one that we cannot detect even in principle. How is it that this can be the case in a materialist ontology? Under materialism, we should be able to detect any aspect of any phenomenon that objectively exists, at least in principle, should we not?

ok, now we have an example to work with. You want to know where the qualitative experience if pain can be observed from a 3rd person prespective. so, what is pain? a qualitative experience that seems to be part of consciousness, as you can say "i am in pain"and our definition of consciousness seems to be "it is like somthing to be" as flipton has put up. forget consciousness having anything to do woth environmental reaction, which is what i have been trying to define it as. fine.

So, what can the 3rd person observe in relation to this experience? they can see the needle prick a finger, then track the signal as it moves up the arm and is processed by various parts of the brain, as signals for a speech reaction are initiated and pain realeving behaviour can be observed. that process: the nerves in the fingers picking up the pin prick, and the brain reaction to that: to me that IS pain, and is the 3rd person observation of the qualia. the experience of pain is exacly that physical process, nothing more. consciousness simply is that process. this "seeming" like there is another level to it somehow that has not been explained by the nervous system is deeply misleading. you can get everything you want just by following the process in its objective steps.

If i imitiated that same process in you, regardless of the finger prick, i could make you think that there was a needle in your finger, simply because your nervous system has been stimulated in the same way. it dosent matter if you knew that there wasent: conscious experience is not heavily dictated by knowledge on this kind of physical level. any higher experience is, in my opinion, just a more complex version of this same model. so we can observe the process of consciousness - if what we are observing in the objective sense is not the process of consiousness, then are you saying that we are simply seeing the biological process, in which the qualia aspect is stapled on to at a later stage? when i argue that the brain IS consciousness, i am saying that there is nothing more to consciousness than the processing of such information. this "seeming" is simply what it feels like for it to be doing its thing. its our ability to predict and to react to our world.

that is well covered by the materialistic stance. as far as i know that's what the materialistic stance is. maybe what we don't have in the materialistic stance is a well defined verion of consiousness. i don't thing "it is like somthing to be" is a good enough definition for any meaningful converstaion. maybe its a good way to see if somthing is conscious or not: test to see if it it like somthing for it to be, but beyond that, how do you test or even research with such a definition?
 
  • #234
Originally posted by Fliption
This has slowly turned into a discussion of materialism and I'm not sure that's where this needs to go. I for one don't think we need to get into vague terms like "physical" to have this discussion. No one is suggesting that you have to change everything about your worldview. What is being discussed is whether consciousness should be added to the list of fundamental elements of nature. Nothing more. Whether these fundamental elements are considered "physical" or not seems irrelevant to me. correct me if I've misunderstood.

I thought asking if consciousness was "physical" or not was very relevant: the whole purpose of setting up materialism in the 1st place was the claim that it was a physical thing, and not a spirit. it was the 1st step away from spirit beings and a decartian kind of flow diagram. so if you want to say that it is physical, then you are attaining to the materialistic doctrine, end of story. has it explained it yet? no. but it hasent been around long either. all materialism originally said was "hey, we can study this, as it happens to be with in the scientific realm". that's it. no more ghosts. just somthing solvable. Should it be a fundemntal force of nature? is consciousness its own form of energy? I didnt realize that that was the question that we were asking.

Consciousness has been defined in this thread very specifically. The line can be drawn at the point where "it is like something to be" the object in question. So the question of whether it exists in insects etc., and to what extent it exists, is not a issue of semantics and fuzzy terms. It is a practical issue of being able to detect consciousness. Which, by the way, is more a problem for anyone arguing that consciousness can be reductively explained. See Hypnagogue's response above for more on that.

what is a more fuzzy definition of consciouness than that? we need somthing a little more substancive to make any kind of real claim about anything, that is all i am trying to say. so defining it more as the ability to act - to show it as an ability, rather than something else - then we can start saying "this is conscious as it is doing this" (it is conscious as it has the ability to have a cognitive state). once we have better boundaries, then we will actually have a paradigm in which to study it.
 
  • #235
Originally posted by Dark Wing
If i imitiated that same process in you, regardless of the finger prick, i could make you think that there was a needle in your finger, simply because your nervous system has been stimulated in the same way.

Agreed, but this fact is compatible with views other than the identity view, so it doesn't seem to be particularly relevant to your case here.

so we can observe the process of consciousness - if what we are observing in the objective sense is not the process of consiousness, then are you saying that we are simply seeing the biological process, in which the qualia aspect is stapled on to at a later stage?

I think you phrase that question a little misleadingly. Certainly observing the brain in action is observing a physical process that is deeply related to the subjective experience of consciousness. And saying that qualia are "stapled on at a later stage" also indicates more than I mean to say-- if anything it seems to me that qualia occur simultaneously with their correlated brain activities, and the connection is probably much deeper than "stapling on" seems to indicate.

But yes, essentially what I am saying is that observing the brain in action is observing a biological process and not the subjective experiences that are correlated with it. It's not clear to me how you could possibly disagree without redefining "subjective experience" to mean something entirely different from what we normally accept it to mean, which appears to be exactly what your strategy is.

when i argue that the brain IS consciousness, i am saying that there is nothing more to consciousness than the processing of such information. this "seeming" is simply what it feels like for it to be doing its thing.

If the "seeming" is simply what it feels like for a neurobiological process to do its thing, why do we detect absolutely no indication of the "seeming" with 3rd person observation? Furthermore, how is it even intelligble under a materialist framework that neurobiological processes should feel anything at all in the first place?

If a nonconscious computer observed the human brain in action, it would never have any reason to believe that anything like "subjective experience" should be associated with the brain activity. The only reason we even think to draw up this association is that we ourselves experience consciousness in the first person. But, again, if we drew only from the objective/materialistic/3rd person view (like that nonconscious computer), we would have no reason to suspect that subjective experience should be associated with a human brain at all. All we would be able to observe would be information processing that leads to complex behavioral interaction with the environment, which is exactly what you are trying to reduce consciousness to. But your own first person subjective experience should tell you that there is more to consciousness than just that.

i don't thing "it is like somthing to be" is a good enough definition for any meaningful converstaion.

It may be inadequate on its own, and thus may need to be further expounded upon and developed, but at bottom it is an absolutely essential and indispensable starting point. To say consciousness, at the most basic level, is not characterized by subjective experience is to misleadingly redefine consciousness into some other, distinct concept. This new concept may be easier to work with, but in working with it we will not make solve the truly important problem (the "hard" problem) of consciousness.
 
  • #236
Originally posted by Dark Wing
so if you want to say that it is physical, then you are attaining to the materialistic doctrine, end of story.

Again, I don't believe whether something is physical or not is relevant. What we're discussing is whether consciousness can be reductively explained. If not, then it needs to be added as a fundamental component to the current pardigm, which just happens to be materialism. It doesn't mean we can't call it materialism when we're finished. Of course, we may not be able to call it that but that is an entirely different discussion.

Should it be a fundemntal force of nature? is consciousness its own form of energy? I didnt realize that that was the question that we were asking.

Check out the title of this thread. That IS the topic. If something cannot be reductively understood then we have to consider that it might be fundamental to nature.

what is a more fuzzy definition of consciouness than that? we need somthing a little more substancive to make any kind of real claim about anything, that is all i am trying to say. so defining it more as the ability to act - to show it as an ability, rather than something else - then we can start saying "this is conscious as it is doing this" (it is conscious as it has the ability to have a cognitive state). once we have better boundaries, then we will actually have a paradigm in which to study it.

This is convenient. You may not think that the definition I gave is workable but the problem is that it IS what needs to be explained. The existence of "what it is like to be" is exactly what we cannot explain. The fact that you have to change the definition in order to reductively analyze it is exactly the point being made here. The thing needing explained cannot be explained reductively. When you change the definition so that you can reductively explain it, you haven't explained what needs explaining. I don't think we need an explanation about "ability to act". It is "what it's like to be" that needs an explanation.
 
  • #237
In some ways defining the term 'consciousness' is the last major hurdle facing science. It's a big problem.

I has some stuff already written on this so I've posted it below. It's much too long so don't feel obliged to read it. Still I had it handy as an extract from something else and thought it was relevant. It might stir up the debate anyway...

It seems that although we can define consciousness well enough to talk to each other about it, and even have reputable academic journals devoted to the discussion of it, there is a problem with the easy and obvious ‘folk’ descriptions that allow us to do this. Without exception they suggest that consciousness is an entity or substance that lies beyond the realms of scientific enquiry.

The simple and generally agreed minimum descriptive terms that apply to consciousness, that always apply to consciousness, that must apply to consciousness, and that would not apply to anything that was not consciousness include the common ‘something that it is like’, or ‘experience’, or ‘attention’, or ‘Being’ and other variations on the theme. Yet nowhere in the scientific literature is there any suggestion that any of these terms, or any combination of them, could be elevated to serve as an accurate definition of consciousness, for they are not scientific. They are considered to be over-simplified descriptions of it.

There is certainly a problem with developing any ‘science of consciousness’ based on such singular but scientifically woolly definitions. These descriptions suggest that ultimately consciouness is an immaterial substance with no third-person observable aspects. Thus they are not simply inadequate as scientific definitions of consciousness, they are actually antithetical to any scientific explanation of it.

For this reason they cannot be accepted by scientists. All sorts of questions would be raised if we were to agree that any of these everyday descriptions of consciousness should be the basis for our investigations of it. It would not be long before the question of how one can claim to be study an entity from a third-person perspective while simultaneously avowing that that entity has no measurable or observable effect on the physical world from which its existence might be inferred would come up, and would require an answer. Unfortunately it is unanswerable. Scientifically speaking 'consciousness' is a term without a referent.

Still, as long as it remains undefined this problem need not be acknowleded. We can argue that we have to wait for a proper definition of consciousness before we can decide whether science can explain it or not (and ignore the irony). In this way the mystery of consciousness is perpetuated, and all the arguments can be made for the extensive research funding that will be required to demystify it.

While this strategy works well in a sense, in that for as long as consciousness remains undefined nobody can prove that it is not a scientific entity, it does not solve the problem of how to scientifically study consciousness, or in fact say anything scientific about it at all.

The popular strategy for overcoming this problem is to talk about something else entirely. (This is allowable because, as we know, we cannot yet define consciousness, and because of this we cannot be quite sure what it is and what is not). Most commonly we can talk about mind and brain instead, turning a blind eye to the extensive evidence that mind and consciousness are not the same thing.

The hypothesis that mind and consciousness are the same thing seems to be the principle means by which the topic is made scientific. The argument is that if consciousnes experience arises from, or is identical with mind, and if mind arises from or is identical with brain, and if brain can be studied by science, then consciousness can be studied by scientific methods. This is a fallacious argument even in the unlikely event that its numerous assumptions hold. To say that feelings of anger are physically caused and arise from brain processes is not to say that the entity doing the feeling can be studied by third-person methods. And the curiously undeterministic mechanism which gives to consciousness the unique property of being physically caused but not physically causal would have to found whether or not we agree that it can be studied in this way.

Nevertheless it is an immensly useful tactic to equate consciousness and mind. By doing this we can equate consciousness with computation rather than the act of experiencing, and discuss mental calculation as if we were talking about consciousness itself, (what it is like to experience the doing of the calculating). This important assumption is therefore almpst invariably incorporated into scientific papers in the first few paragraphs.

Scientific writers are free to do this for one reason only, that being that we do not have a scientific definition of consciousness. We do not have one because we cannot have one, no such thing exists. Unless one argues that consciousness does not exist then those holding the ‘scientific’ view of consciousness are faced with no option but to adopt Francis Crick’s strategy.

“Everyone has a rough idea of what is meant by consciousness. It is better to avoid a precise definition of consciousness because of the dangers of premature definition. Until the problem is understood much better, any attempt at a further definition is likely to be either misleading or overly-restrictive, or both." (Crick, 1994).

Nothing has changed since he wrote this, and it is hard to see why it ever should. Apparently we are not even allowed the same kind of working definition that we have for everything else we are working on.

In summary it seems inevitable that consciousness will never have an acceptable scientific definition, and that this is precisely the reason that it does not appear to be an entirely scientific entity. In other words, as Chalmers argues, science defines conscious experience as beyond science, and it follows inevitably that science cannot define consciousness without redefining itself. There is no escape from this situation. Either science must leave consciousness forever undefined or it must redefine what ‘science’ and 'scientific' mean.

I’ve collected some prominent definitions of consciousness from here and there for my own purposes. Here’s a recent example from a paper showing how to justify the writer's computation-based research and theory. It’s nicely illustrates what Chalmer’s calls the ‘sleight of hand’ of scientific writers on this topic.

“We start with the tentative hypothesis that although the word ‘consciousness’ has no well defined meaning, it is used to refer to aspects of human and animal information processing. We then argue that we can enhance our understanding of what these aspects might be by designing and building virtual-machine architectures capturing various features of consciousness...”

"...On that basis we can enhance our understanding of what these aspects might be by designing, building, analysing and experimenting with virtual machine architectures which attempt to elaborate the hypothesis. This activity may in turn nurture the development of our concepts of consciousness, along with a host of related concepts, such as ‘experiencing’, ‘feeling’, perceiving’, believing’, ‘wanting’, ‘enjoying’, remembering’, noticing’ and ‘learning’, helping us to see them as dependent on an implicit theory of minds as information processing virtual machines...”

“...On this basis we can find new answers to old philosophical puzzles as well as enriching our empirical theories… The result, it is hoped, is that the successor concepts will be free of the many conundra (such as the apparent possibility of zombies) which plague our current concept of consciousness...”

“...Some people offer putative definitions of ‘consciousness’, for instance defining it as ‘self-awareness’, or ‘what it is like to be something’. ‘experience’, ‘being the subject or seeming’ or ‘having somebody home’, despite the fact that nothing is achieved by defining one obscure expression in terms of another.” (Sloman & Chrisley JCS)

This is the level of thinking to which scientific researchers are reduced by the issue of consciousness. I can’t think of another area of academic research where such circular nonsense would have ever got past the referees. (The same issue publication carries the bold assertion by Holland and Goodman that “we do not experience what it is to experience something.”)

My prediction is that there will never be an agreed scientific definition of consciousness. If I was James Randi I'd put a million dollars on it. Any takers?

regards - and apologies for writing so much
Canute
 
  • #238
hypnagogue said:If a nonconscious computer observed the human brain in action, it would never have any reason to believe that anything like "subjective experience" should be associated with the brain activity.

While I agree with this, do you think the computer could "sense" that the human brain in action was experiencing something it couldn't comprehend mentally, but emotionally? Like seeing the human brain 'working' but not knowing what it is doing? All it could do is percieve and "sense" that the human brain is in subjective state?
 
  • #239
Originally posted by Canute
My prediction is that there will never be an agreed scientific definition of consciousness. If I was James Randi I'd put a million dollars on it. Any takers?
[/B]

Heh, I was just about to go to the money line myself . It is against almost everything about me(since I am certain of almost nothing), but this is one topic that seems so clear and convincing that I was definitely willing to say I'd bet my entire fortune Hypnagogue(and yourself) is right. I can say this about nothing else though. I still claim ignorance and confusion about reality in general
 
Last edited:
  • #240
Originally posted by Jeebus
While I agree with this, do you think the computer could "sense" that the human brain in action was experiencing something it couldn't comprehend mentally, but emotionally? Like seeing the human brain 'working' but not knowing what it is doing? All it could do is percieve and "sense" that the human brain is in subjective state?

The computer would have no reason to propose that the brain is in any way associated with what we think of as subjective experience. Having no subjective experience of its own, and having only objective data to work with, the computer would never rationally suspect that anything like subjective experience even exists in the first place.
 

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