Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Consul]

Moreover, dream research provides compelling evidence that the brain is the organ of consciousness, and that consciousness is realized in and by the brain.

The word 'organ' originally means 'instrument'.

Yes, but its biological meaning is "any part or structure of an organism adapted for a special function or functions" (Henderson's Dictionary of Biology). So to say that the brain is the organ of consciousness is to say that consciousness is a brain function or an effect of brain functions—that experiences are in themselves neural processes or effects of ones. In short: the brain is or makes the (conscious) mind!

[Consul]

The word 'organ' originally means 'instrument'. The brain, and the body in general, is the subject's instrument of existing in the material world, i.e. being conscious of the world. It is not wrong to say that consciousness arises from matter, because this is what happens functionally, but my ontological interpretation of the situation is such that everything happens to the subject. And what is the subject, you have asked. The subject is you and me and everybody who experiences something here and now. It is what you mean by the word 'I'. You can see your eye, but you cannot see your 'I'. It is transcendental. It does not belong to the world, it is behind the world, as a necessary reference point that you cannot get rid of in philosophy, although in science you can put it into “brackets” because there you can advance blindly and make new discoveries in the landscape you confront.
So your world looks the same as my world, but when you say that reality consists of matter, I say that reality consists of the subject's existence in the material world. Matter, consciousness and the subject, taken apart from this triadic structure, are mere abstractions, incapable of existing alone.

Your "transcendental" subjects are mysteriously reified abstract "reference points" or "points of view" rather than concrete, living subjects in the world, which are the only real subjects I know. That you cannot see your seeings doesn't mean that you cannot see the seer you are, because you are a visible seeing object in the world. Subjects are conscious, experiencing objects—simple as that!

[Sculptor1]

In fact it is thought that patients who have comas can hear their relatives when they visit.

The Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (4th ed., 2015) defines "coma" as "a state of deep unconsciousness and absence of responses to external and internal stimuli". So there's no such thing as coma consciousness, and comatose patients don't consciously hear anything (by having subjective auditory sensations). But there are other kinds of extreme brain states where (minimal or more-than-minimal) consciousness may be or is present:

COMA –> VS (VEGETATIVE STATE) —> MCS (MINIMALLY CONSCIOUS STATE) —> MCS+ —> CONFUSIONAL STATE —> LOCKED-IN STATE

See: Coma and consciousness: Paradigms (re)framed by neuroimaging (PDF)

We can play with definitions all day. The fact remains that OOB experiences are false.

[Tamminen]

Your "transcendental" subjects are mysteriously reified abstract "reference points" or "points of view" rather than concrete, living subjects in the world, which are the only real subjects I know.

Language reifies. My expressions must be read metaphorically. There is nothing "thing-like" in the subject. Wittgenstein said that a subject cannot be complex, and he was right. You have criticized Wittgenstein's metaphysical subject, but in fact I am sure that you have totally failed to understand what he and I mean by that concept, which is one of the basic concepts of any rational metaphysics. For if you did understand what we mean, you would accept it as self-evident. Because it is self-evident.

The subject is closer than your body. The subject is closer than your mind. Only reflective minds can see it. But also this is a metaphor.

You are the subject. But you are not your body.

[Felix]

Your "transcendental" subjects are mysteriously reified abstract "reference points" or "points of view" rather than concrete, living subjects in the world, which are the only real subjects I know.

Ha, I fooled you! I am actually a disembodied spirit, not a concrete living subject in this world, but thanks to the internet I can fool gullible materialists.

[Sculptor1]

Your "transcendental" subjects are mysteriously reified abstract "reference points" or "points of view" rather than concrete, living subjects in the world, which are the only real subjects I know.

Ha, I fooled you! I am actually a disembodied spirit, not a concrete living subject in this world, but thanks to the internet I can fool gullible materialists.

Ooooh. Now did you manage to type those keys?

[Atla]

I also think that the argument can be made that the kind of materialism you are trapped it could be classified as a learned mental disorder. Whenever qualia comes up, you automatically dismiss it as something that doesn't exist, and then start to talk about something else and call that something else qualia.
In short you deny that you have experiences, but you are either unaware of this or are unwilling to admit it. It's impossible to have a conversation with someone like that.

WTF…?!?
There must be another Consul here, because what you write above has nothing to do with me and my beliefs. The Consul who's writing this is not an antirealist but a realist about subjective experiences and qualia. I agree with Galen Strawson that eliminative materialism (eliminativism) about subjective experience/phenomenal consciousness is "the silliest view that has ever been held by any human being."

"If 'consciousness' means conscious experience in the concrete, the proposition 'Consciousness does not exist' shows itself 'absurd and impossible' by the fundamental canons of science, philosophy, and common sense. Either the proposition, therefore, is false, or it entails the most searching scientific revolution ever envisioned, not merely in psychology but in all human concept-systems and all logical and scientific methodology. Such revision, although not impossible, is greater than any attempted by a Plato, a Darwin, or an Einstein. Its positive nature I cannot conjecture, and the behaviorists themselves have shown small interest or aptitude for it. Finally, even if it were accomplished, it must be so complex that no conceivable psychological advantage would warrant its substitution for the current scheme. No living man, I think, ever seriously thought through so recondite a possibility."

(Williams, Donald Cary. "The Existence of Consciousness." In Principles of Empirical Realism: Philosophical Essays, 23-40. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1966. p. 30)

That said, there's a distinction between reductive realism and nonreductive realism about experience/consciousness and qualia:

Reductive materialism is reductively realistic about qualia rather than eliminatively antirealistic: Phenomenal properties are real, do exist, but they are complex or structural physical properties.

Nonreductive materialism is nonreductively realistic about qualia: Phenomenal properties are real, do exist, and they emerge from or are caused by complex or structural physical properties.

There is also a nonmaterialistic nonreductive realism about qualia as represented by e.g. Chalmers' naturalistic dualism and, of course, substance dualism and substance spiritualism, both of which include an antimaterialistic property dualism.

Both "property" and "emergence" are abstractions, so in both cases it's simply a well-established lie that they view qualia as real.

So you too deny having actual experiences, and you also deny denying it. As I said that's a pretty serious condition (reminds me of Dennett).

[Atla]

There has NEVER been any evidence whatsoever that would suggest that matter as arranged as in animals brains, would give rise to something extra that is qualia.

When people undergo general anaesthesia, their consciousness is switched off and on again solely through the chemical manipulation of processes in their brains—which fact strongly suggests that consciousness results from physicochemical brain processes.

As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.

We may knock out parts of the brain/mind, stop them from working, we can stop people from remembering things, we can dismantle self-reflection etc. but that in no way implies that those "unconscious" states didn't have qualia.

[Atla]

When people undergo general anaesthesia, their consciousness is switched off and on again solely through the chemical manipulation of processes in their brains—which fact strongly suggests that consciousness results from physicochemical brain processes.

Moreover, dream research provides compelling evidence that the brain is the organ of consciousness, and that consciousness is realized in and by the brain.

"There is overwhelming evidence that the whole range of subjective conscious experiences—the entire phenomenal level of organization—does come into existence during dreaming. From this simple, well-attested fact it follows that the same physical or neural realizing basis of consciousness must be responsible for the sphere of subjective experiences both during wakefulness as well as during dreaming. The mechanisms of consciousness must be active in both states and furthermore organized in a closely similar way—otherwise dream experience would not amount to a faithful simulation of the perceptual world.

Knowledge of the physiological activity in the brain during dreaming could be utilized to constrain hypotheses about the locus of control of consciousness. Many of the sensory and motor systems that normally during wakefulness are in causal interaction with the phenomenal level, are no longer so in REM sleep. As the phenomenal level is fully realized all the same, the sensorimotor systems disengaged from phenomenal consciousness during dreaming can be excluded from the locus of control of the phenomenal level. Phenomenal consciousness cannot be ontologically dependent on any bodily or physiological state that is missing during dreaming. No state missing during dreaming can be absolutely necessary for the existence of the phenomenal level. Therefore, physiological states or activities missing during dreaming cannot be constitutive of phenomenal consciousness.

During REM sleep in the brain there is a sensory input blockade (preventing stimuli from reaching consciousness), a motor output blockade (preventing motor commands from reaching the muscles), and a highly active brain in between them. As a result of all this, the phenomenal level of subjective experience is brought about inside the brain. Yet, for an external observer the dreaming person's body appears to be paralyzed and unresponsive, revealing no behavioral signs of the vivid phenomenal world wherein the dreaming subject is immersed in all sorts of colorful adventures.

Even so, physical stimuli are received and processed by our sensory systems, but only at levels not involving consciousness."

(Revonsuo, Antti. Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. pp. 86-7)

Yeah and?
I too have been using the findings of modern neuroscience and psyhcology to great effect in rewiring my brain/mind/myself.

But this again doesn't address the issue of qualia.

[Sculptor1]

When people undergo general anaesthesia, their consciousness is switched off and on again solely through the chemical manipulation of processes in their brains—which fact strongly suggests that consciousness results from physicochemical brain processes.

As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.

We may knock out parts of the brain/mind, stop them from working, we can stop people from remembering things, we can dismantle self-reflection etc. but that in no way implies that those "unconscious" states didn't have qualia.

But you have not stated a problem here.

[Consul]

Both "property" and "emergence" are abstractions, so in both cases it's simply a well-established lie that they view qualia as real.

I'm not sure what you mean by "abstraction", but (conservatively) reductive materialists and nonreductive ones (who are general realists about properties [qualities/quantities]) think that experiential/phenomenal qualities are concretely real.

So you too deny having actual experiences, and you also deny denying it. As I said that's a pretty serious condition (reminds me of Dennett).

Yes, among the materialists there are guys such as Dennett, who aren't what Galen Strawson calls "real realists" about (phenomenal) consciousness but merely nominal realists or pseudorealists. In my view, Dennett is in effect an eliminative materialist, because the sort of consciousness he acknowledges isn't really (phenomenal) consciousness but something else.

Note well that I'm not like Dennett, because I am a really realistic materialist about phenomenal consciousness aka subjective experience!

[Consul]

Both "property" and "emergence" are abstractions, so in both cases it's simply a well-established lie that they view qualia as real.

Whether there are (ontologically) emergent properties in nature is a highly contentious issue; but if there are, they aren't "abstractions" either.

[Consul]

When people undergo general anaesthesia, their consciousness is switched off and on again solely through the chemical manipulation of processes in their brains—which fact strongly suggests that consciousness results from physicochemical brain processes.

As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.

No, I don't, since to talk about consciousness—by which I mean phenomenal consciousness—is to talk about qualitative subjective experience.

"I myself am hesitant to use the word 'qualia' and its singular, 'quale', because they give the impression that there are two separate phenomena, consciousness and qualia. But of course, all conscious phenomena are qualitative, subjective experiences, and hence are qualia. There are not two types of phenomena, consciousness and qualia. There is just consciousness, which is a series of qualitative states."

(Searle, John R. The Mystery of Consciousness. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1997. pp. 9-10)

We may knock out parts of the brain/mind, stop them from working, we can stop people from remembering things, we can dismantle self-reflection etc. but that in no way implies that those "unconscious" states didn't have qualia.

It's incoherent to ascribe qualia to a (phenomenally) nonconscious state, since any mental state having or containing qualia is thereby (phenomenally) conscious.
(I use "quale" in the narrow technical sense in which it is used in the philosophy of mind and psychology, and not as a general synonym of "quality". A phenomenally nonconscious mental state can certainly have or contain qualities which aren't qualia in the narrow sense of the term.)

Note that to say that a nonconscious state cannot have or contain qualia is not to say that there cannot be any cognitively unaccessed or even unaccessible conscious states with qualia!

Also note that by "conscious state" I do not mean a mental state of which its subject is cognitively conscious but simply a subjective experiential state consisting in the presence of mental "impressions" or "ideas" (images)!

[Consul]

As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.

No, I don't, since to talk about consciousness—by which I mean phenomenal consciousness—is to talk about qualitative subjective experience.

…of which there are three main sorts:

1. sensation
2. emotion
3. imagination (including thought)

By the way, I think imagination is virtual sensation, i.e. the simulation of sensation; so we have:

1. sensation
1.1 actual
1.2 virtual: imagination
2. emotion

All actual or virtual sensations and all emotions have a certain qualitative character or "feel" that determines what it's like to have or undergo them.

The evolutionary problem of primary, phenomenal consciousness aka subjective experience is the problem of how biological organisms (qua type of physical systems) became subjects of actual&virtual sensations and emotions.

[Consul]

As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.
We may knock out parts of the brain/mind, stop them from working, we can stop people from remembering things, we can dismantle self-reflection etc. but that in no way implies that those "unconscious" states didn't have qualia.

But you have not stated a problem here.

We need to be careful so as not to confuse conscious states in the first-order sense with ones in the higher-order sense. In the first-order sense a conscious state is simply an experiential state (an experience), whereas in the higher-order sense it is a state of which its subject is conscious, i.e. cognitively (introspectively/reflectively) aware.

Whether first-order conscious states or experiences depend on being objects of cognition (attention/introspection/reflection) is a highly contentious issue.

Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... ss-higher/