Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Tegularius]

It's amazing how many people one meets in person or online who resemble precisely that condition!

[NickGaspar]

It's amazing how many people one meets in person or online who resemble precisely that condition!

Which condition is that?

[popeye1945]

Nick,

If I could solve the hard problem of consciousness I would not be spending my time posting here.

[NickGaspar]

Nick,

If I could solve the hard problem of consciousness I would not be spending my time posting here.

Well why do you think that there is a "hard problem of consciousness" and can you articulate it?

IT is good to keep our definitions clear and avoid vague generalizations if we want our discussions to are meaningful.
We understand that the body feeds the brain with stimuli, but you would never say that "digestion" is a process realized by our heart or skin or any other organ. Some Organs enable other organs to function, but every single one has a specialty.
Why do you say that mental conscious states are achieved by a collection of bodily organs. Its a fact that if I replace my heart with an artificial one, if I remove my kidney, my appendix, my nail, my finger etc....I still have the ability to direct my conscious attention to environmental and organic stimuli.
It is also a fact if we remove the Ascending Reticular Activating system ,we wont be able to consciously attend any environmental or organic stimuli or enjoy any thoughts or behavior.

[popeye1945]

Nick,
Tell me precisely what in my statement you have difficulty with. We all know that the brain evolved from the inside out through many many incremental changes, there is no system in the present that does have its precursors in evolutionary development. You are wondering about certain organs creating the brain, no, the body is a multicellular organism that is conscious as a community, the digestive system is itself is conscious, if one had to know consciously the formulas necessary to digest our daily meals we would starve to death complex and as numerous as they are. It does seem an obvious fact that the body created the brain. If you disagree tell me where we might look to for a point of origin? Are you thinking a supernatural source?











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[NickGaspar]

Nick,
Tell me precisely what in my statement you have difficulty with. We all know that the brain evolved from the inside out through many many incremental changes, there is no system in the present that does have its precursors in evolutionary development. You are wondering about certain organs creating the brain, no, the body is a multicellular organism that is conscious as a community, the digestive system is itself is conscious, if one had to know consciously the formulas necessary to digest our daily meals we would starve to death complex and as numerous as they are. It does seem an obvious fact that the body created the brain. If you disagree tell me where we might look to for a point of origin? Are you thinking a supernatural source?

-" We all know that the brain evolved from the inside out through many many incremental changes, there is no system in the present that does have its precursors in evolutionary development."
-Sure and the produced mind properties evolved and emerged along with the organ. we don't find complex conscious behavior (art, tools,constructions) in early hominoids even if we share the same body with them. What we don't share is the same brain modules.

-" You are wondering about certain organs creating the brain, no, the body is a multicellular organism that is conscious as a community,"
-No. I wonder whether other organs can produce mind states. The body is conscious? like a mental ability ? If not then why using this outside quotes?

-" the digestive system is itself is conscious,"
-Again conscious like neurons and cells exchanging chemical inputs or conscious as if our digestive track can direct its conscious attention to a potato....a tomato slice and some coke? I mean those are vague claims created by undefined words!

-" if one had to know consciously the formulas necessary to digest our daily meals we would starve to death complex and as numerous as they are."
-Why one should know that...do you really know that your intestines are mentally challenged or the have to think it over on what to digest first? Do you understand that the functions in our digestive track don't really need any mental input or conscious decision, thought or trouble shooting solution by the organ it self. The function of the structure is guided by our parasympathetic nervous systems that needs zero input from the high level features of the brain.

-"It does seem an obvious fact that the body created the brain. If you disagree tell me where we might look to for a point of origin? Are you thinking a supernatural source?"
-That is completely different topic. We are not addressing the origins of the brain, but the mechanism responsible for a specific biological properties (mind properties). The high level features of the mind originate in the brain. We can consciously attend specific environmental and organic stimuli only when our brain is functioning, awaken and in a state of awareness. There is a high level of specialization in different functions and properties in all the organs of our body.
ITs one thing to need a body in order to have a functioning brain and an other to generalize and say because of this contingency we can say that the body produces our conscious states.
I don't disagree with your hierarchy of origins but with your tactic to merge everything under a single concept.
We are addressing the mental ability of conscious behavior, the ability to identify a stimuli and guide your actions accordingly.
The supernatural is not part of Philosophy, so I will assume that you also reject its explanatory power on the subject.

[popeye1945]

Nick,
You have a profoundly limited concept of consciousness. Do you believe animals are conscious, do you believe plants are conscious. If you believe that consciousness is the soul property of man and that it is not in a sense a continuium, it did after all arise from innate matter. I know many people do have this limited concept. I am just not to prepared to start at that limited defination. The OP must believe there is consciousness without a brain or at least open to the thought.

[NickGaspar]

Nick,
You have a profoundly limited concept of consciousness. Do you believe animals are conscious, do you believe plants are conscious. If you believe that consciousness is the soul property of man and that it is not in a sense a continuium, it did after all arise from innate matter. I know many people do have this limited concept. I am just not to prepared to start at that limited defination. The OP must believe there is consciousness without a brain or at least open to the thought.

-"You have a profoundly limited concept of consciousness."
-No. First of all I didn't provide an extensive definition of the concept yet. The other problem is you avoid to make any acknowledgement to my points and that is a bad thing. The thing with definitions is that they limit our concepts BY DEFINITION...in order to make an idea useful, clear and relevant. So this is a problem for your claim about a really vague causal mechanism of consciousness.

-"Do you believe animals are conscious"
-Yes they have the mental ability to be conscious of their environment, their self (many of them) and their drives and emotions etc. this is a knowledge based belief and we even have found out that some of them also use symbolic concepts.

-"do you believe plants are conscious."
-No and that is a knowledge based belief (based on our current knowledge of course).

-" If you believe that consciousness is the soul property of man and that it is not in a sense a continuium, it did after all arise from innate matter. "
-Do you even read my posts? First of all...what is a "soul property of man"? Can you even define that concept???
Now "sense of continuium"? That is part of the content of a conscious state, not the actual ability in question sir.
Lastly How a general property of matter is relevant to our discussion?

-"I know many people do have this limited concept."
-well you merged together so many ineffable and irrelevant concepts (soul, sense a continuum, innate matter) so I can not say that I have ever heard such a concept and I also can not see how this vague deepity can ever be consider to be "limited". I really don't know.

In your previous post you accused me for supernaturalism, now you push this weird concept on me. Again, do you really read my posts?If you don't understand them, why don't you try to steel-man my position or ask questions?(assuming that you are interested in this discussion).
Seriously how can you conclude that I hold those two views (supernaturalism and souls) when I clearly stated that the property of consciousness are emergent properties of brain function!!!!!????

-" I am just not to prepared to start at that limited defination. "
-You shouldn't because that "definition" is not descriptive but vague and not limited at all....its defines nothing.

-" The OP must believe there is consciousness without a brain or at least open to the thought."
-How on earth this comment is relevant to our discussion. Seriously are you a troll or something. If you are pls tell me so I can stop wasting my time.

Again...last try.
You promoted a wider list of candidates responsible for our conscious states. You introduced our "body" in the picture.
I told you that our body can only feed all short of stimuli to our brain. Our brain unconsciously can either deal with them with our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system and take care the discrepancies found in our Homeostasis.
Our conscious states have zero role in that process.
The problem starts when those systems alone can not attend our homeostatic condition and additional acts are needed. i.e. low fluids,low energy in cells, Bowell movement , Environmental threat (predator),extreme temperature, bad thought or dream etc et, all are stimuli that demand immediate conscious attention and action. This is when the part of the brain responsible for this kind of process kicks in.
It identifies the emergency and threats and seeks a solution ( food,drink, take a dumb,run up a tree ,shelter, change of thought etc).
All those actions demand our ability to be consciously aware of the environment and our needs.
The body might provide the ''data" but the brain has to address those that manage to exceed the threshold and become the content of our conscious state.

[popeye1945]

Nick,
I disagree!

[NickGaspar]

Nick,
I disagree!

And you are fractally wrong.

[Sy Borg]

All that science is very impressive but the fact remains that researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about.

I repeat - no one has the slightest idea how consciousness comes about. There are many impressive guesses, and they are all just that - guesses. IIT seems promising, but the configurations needed to "turn on the lights" is unknown. By that, I mean completely unknown.

If you gave any researcher the brief to create a conscious mind, the honest ones would have no idea where to start and the rest would construct a machine that imitates the responses of animals, that pretends to be conscious.

The example was obviously a case of brain plasticity. It's not as though the brain stem is normally responsible for speech. New structures clearly emerges, enabling the baby to (at least) parrot the word "Mummy". I am also open to the idea that other structures can perform equivalent functions of the brain in simple organisms. Not so long ago it was believed that birds lacked the cognition of mammals due to a lack of a cerebral cortex. It never occurred to anyone form many years that the pallium would perform the same function.

Two papers published today in Science find birds actually have a brain that is much more similar to our complex primate organ than previously thought. For years it was assumed that the avian brain was limited in function because it lacked a neocortex. In mammals, the neocortex is the hulking, evolutionarily modern outer layer of the brain that allows for complex cognition and creativity and that makes up most of what, in vertebrates as a whole, is called the pallium. The new findings show that birds’ do, in fact, have a brain structure that is comparable to the neocortex despite taking a different shape. It turns out that at a cellular level, the brain region is laid out much like the mammal cortex, explaining why many birds exhibit advanced behaviors and abilities that have long befuddled scientists. The new work even suggests that certain birds demonstrate some degree of consciousness.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... e-thought/

Well your statement "researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about." is correct to a point.
First of all this problem exists in all emergent properties in nature, not just conscious states of a brain.
Its the disconnection of the "qualities" displayed by the causal mechanism and the emerged phenomenon that doesn't allow us to be completely knowledgeable.
i.e Gravity, we still haven't pin point its ontology even if we have identify the necessary and sufficient mechanism.(particle, emergent quality ?etc).
I think this is as far as we can go in describing the mechanisms responsible for any emergent property.
We just observe the causal mechanism and establish strong correlations with the produced phenomenon.
In reality we can not prove anything, we just identify the Necessary and Sufficient conditions for a phenomenon to emerge.
We may even stare the actual cause in the face but because of the emergent quality of the phenomenon we will always believe we miss something!

Sure in the complex case of brain states we have some more descriptive work to do in order to identify all the mechanisms of the system.
But we do know way to many thing to even have a discussion under the Opening Question of this thread.
i.e.We can arouse a specific brain area of patients (central lateral thalamus) who are under general anesthesia and bring them in to a conscious states where they are aware of all environmental stimuli without any signs of the side effects of the drug!!!. We can diagnose loss of consciousness (or a specific quality of it) based on the injury of a specific brain module and we can tell when a guy is conscious and what is the conscious content of a specific thought through fMRI scanning. Sure we have some miss fires now and then, but we can never claim absolute knowledge or absolute uniformity in complex biological systems.
So we don't really need to "build" an machine to imitate consciousness in order to say that we understand the neurology of our conscious states.
Like in Gravity, or mitosis, or photosynthesis or digestion, we just have to describe the causal mechanisms and produce testable predictions and technical applications.

Re: birds, totally agree. It is wilful blindness to question the consciousness of non-human animals, perhaps a distortion with roots in our old ideas of humans as divine beings.

That consciousness can be manipulated in many ways is well-known. It can be done physically (injury/surgery) or it can be done memetically (the US in recent years has been an exemplary case study). However, we cannot create consciousness, just as as we cannot create life (at least without breeding).

So we are left with an admission that we don't actually understand these phenomena. We can't create energy either, as per the First Law. These are basic and critical aspects of reality (or our realities) that we don't quite understand. It's like trying to catch a cloud without disturbing it. So we have to approach this issue with maximal humility. Our comments in this area need qualifiers because, as with the cause of the Big Bang or what's in the middle of black holes etc, we don't yet have enough knowledge for certainty.

That neuroscientists have made progress in the field of neuroscience is hardly a surprise. After decades of trying to show how the brain generates consciousness, no result. The brain unarguably amplifies and shapes consciousness, but does it generate it? All of it, or does it require other inputs? There's no proof. That the brain has a major role in consciousness is not in doubt. It is the key player, so to speak, but is it the only player? The only source?

As Popeye and I have suggested earlier, there may be other systems involved in the basic generation of a sense of being, which is then largely shaped by brains. It may be that the combination of the digestive, circulatory, endocrine and nervous systems is the generator. Maybe those systems contribute more than just sending resources to a brain?

Maybe a conscious "brain in a vat" is not possible, even if attached to high quality synthetic replacements of the digestive, circulatory, endocrine systems? Maybe there are subtle dynamics between body systems that we don't yet understand? We don't know.

I doubt that too many have tried to research this. Such a project would be extremely complex and expensive, and such blue skies research won't attract funding today. By contrast, neuroscience is a boom field so we can expect future projects to continue treatting a sense of being as a black box, and focus on what happens after that. In that, the situation for neurology is rather like that with cosmology, whose foundation is also a black box.

... Consciousness is the third most important mind property (According to Cognitive Science and Neuropsychoanalysis) after Awakeness and Unconscious Self awareness. This is an other huge problem. Most people who participate in discussions like this one aren't able to distinguish consciousness from the rest of the properties of the mind or the mind it self. So in order to even talk about what consciousness is or how it emerges, we need to define the different aspects and qualities of the phenomenon and understand what other people mean by that word.

Another perspective is that consciousness has two aspects, wakefulness and awareness, its "strength" and its "quality".

I don't have much issue with yours and Consul's approach. For me, the crux is a sense of being. That existence feels like something. The problems I run into with these discussions, is trying to get across that, say, a humans' deep sleep is still conscious to some minuscule extent, but to us it's trivial because our regular consciousness is so vivid by comparison. Some would call it proto-consciousness. I personally think of it as reflexes.

So I would frame any of these topics as: What is the difference between the most complex non-conscious reflex and the least conscious reflex?

[Terrapin Station]

All that science is very impressive but the fact remains that researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about.

I repeat - no one has the slightest idea how consciousness comes about. There are many impressive guesses, and they are all just that - guesses. IIT seems promising, but the configurations needed to "turn on the lights" is unknown. By that, I mean completely unknown.

If you gave any researcher the brief to create a conscious mind, the honest ones would have no idea where to start and the rest would construct a machine that imitates the responses of animals, that pretends to be conscious.

The example was obviously a case of brain plasticity. It's not as though the brain stem is normally responsible for speech. New structures clearly emerges, enabling the baby to (at least) parrot the word "Mummy". I am also open to the idea that other structures can perform equivalent functions of the brain in simple organisms. Not so long ago it was believed that birds lacked the cognition of mammals due to a lack of a cerebral cortex. It never occurred to anyone form many years that the pallium would perform the same function.

Two papers published today in Science find birds actually have a brain that is much more similar to our complex primate organ than previously thought. For years it was assumed that the avian brain was limited in function because it lacked a neocortex. In mammals, the neocortex is the hulking, evolutionarily modern outer layer of the brain that allows for complex cognition and creativity and that makes up most of what, in vertebrates as a whole, is called the pallium. The new findings show that birds’ do, in fact, have a brain structure that is comparable to the neocortex despite taking a different shape. It turns out that at a cellular level, the brain region is laid out much like the mammal cortex, explaining why many birds exhibit advanced behaviors and abilities that have long befuddled scientists. The new work even suggests that certain birds demonstrate some degree of consciousness.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... e-thought/

Well your statement "researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about." is correct to a point.
First of all this problem exists in all emergent properties in nature, not just conscious states of a brain.
Its the disconnection of the "qualities" displayed by the causal mechanism and the emerged phenomenon that doesn't allow us to be completely knowledgeable.
i.e Gravity, we still haven't pin point its ontology even if we have identify the necessary and sufficient mechanism.(particle, emergent quality ?etc).
I think this is as far as we can go in describing the mechanisms responsible for any emergent property.
We just observe the causal mechanism and establish strong correlations with the produced phenomenon.
In reality we can not prove anything, we just identify the Necessary and Sufficient conditions for a phenomenon to emerge.
We may even stare the actual cause in the face but because of the emergent quality of the phenomenon we will always believe we miss something!

Sure in the complex case of brain states we have some more descriptive work to do in order to identify all the mechanisms of the system.
But we do know way to many thing to even have a discussion under the Opening Question of this thread.
i.e.We can arouse a specific brain area of patients (central lateral thalamus) who are under general anesthesia and bring them in to a conscious states where they are aware of all environmental stimuli without any signs of the side effects of the drug!!!. We can diagnose loss of consciousness (or a specific quality of it) based on the injury of a specific brain module and we can tell when a guy is conscious and what is the conscious content of a specific thought through fMRI scanning. Sure we have some miss fires now and then, but we can never claim absolute knowledge or absolute uniformity in complex biological systems.
So we don't really need to "build" an machine to imitate consciousness in order to say that we understand the neurology of our conscious states.
Like in Gravity, or mitosis, or photosynthesis or digestion, we just have to describe the causal mechanisms and produce testable predictions and technical applications.

Re: birds, totally agree. It is wilful blindness to question the consciousness of non-human animals, perhaps a distortion with roots in our old ideas of humans as divine beings.

That consciousness can be manipulated in many ways is well-known. It can be done physically (injury/surgery) or it can be done memetically (the US in recent years has been an exemplary case study). However, we cannot create consciousness, just as as we cannot create life (at least without breeding).

So we are left with an admission that we don't actually understand these phenomena. We can't create energy either, as per the First Law. These are basic and critical aspects of reality (or our realities) that we don't quite understand. It's like trying to catch a cloud without disturbing it. So we have to approach this issue with maximal humility. Our comments in this area need qualifiers because, as with the cause of the Big Bang or what's in the middle of black holes etc, we don't yet have enough knowledge for certainty.

That neuroscientists have made progress in the field of neuroscience is hardly a surprise. After decades of trying to show how the brain generates consciousness, no result. The brain unarguably amplifies and shapes consciousness, but does it generate it? All of it, or does it require other inputs? There's no proof. That the brain has a major role in consciousness is not in doubt. It is the key player, so to speak, but is it the only player? The only source?

As Popeye and I have suggested earlier, there may be other systems involved in the basic generation of a sense of being, which is then largely shaped by brains. It may be that the combination of the digestive, circulatory, endocrine and nervous systems is the generator. Maybe those systems contribute more than just sending resources to a brain?

Maybe a conscious "brain in a vat" is not possible, even if attached to high quality synthetic replacements of the digestive, circulatory, endocrine systems? Maybe there are subtle dynamics between body systems that we don't yet understand? We don't know.

I doubt that too many have tried to research this. Such a project would be extremely complex and expensive, and such blue skies research won't attract funding today. By contrast, neuroscience is a boom field so we can expect future projects to continue treatting a sense of being as a black box, and focus on what happens after that. In that, the situation for neurology is rather like that with cosmology, whose foundation is also a black box.

... Consciousness is the third most important mind property (According to Cognitive Science and Neuropsychoanalysis) after Awakeness and Unconscious Self awareness. This is an other huge problem. Most people who participate in discussions like this one aren't able to distinguish consciousness from the rest of the properties of the mind or the mind it self. So in order to even talk about what consciousness is or how it emerges, we need to define the different aspects and qualities of the phenomenon and understand what other people mean by that word.

Another perspective is that consciousness has two aspects, wakefulness and awareness, its "strength" and its "quality".

I don't have much issue with yours and Consul's approach. For me, the crux is a sense of being. That existence feels like something. The problems I run into with these discussions, is trying to get across that, say, a humans' deep sleep is still conscious to some minuscule extent, but to us it's trivial because our regular consciousness is so vivid by comparison. Some would call it proto-consciousness. I personally think of it as reflexes.

So I would frame any of these topics as: What is the difference between the most complex non-conscious reflex and the least conscious reflex?

In order to conclude that something other than brains might be involved in consciousness, we should have some evidence--any evidence--of something else being involved. Currently there is no such evidence.

[Sy Borg]

Oh, I said brains were very much involved in consciousness, but there is zero evidence that it achieves this independently (detail of this is in the above post).

[NickGaspar]

Re: birds, totally agree. It is wilful blindness to question the consciousness of non-human animals, perhaps a distortion with roots in our old ideas of humans as divine beings.

-Agreed

That consciousness can be manipulated in many ways is well-known. It can be done physically (injury/surgery) or it can be done memetically (the US in recent years has been an exemplary case study).

-agreed

However, we cannot create consciousness, just as as we cannot create life (at least without breeding).

-And how our current epistemic and technical limitations are relevant to anything? This appears to be an argument from ignorance fallacy.

So we are left with an admission that we don't actually understand these phenomena.

-We can not create gravity....but we create light. Does this mean that we understand both of those phenomena????
Of course not. We don't know the ontology of gravity (particle/emergnet) and we don't know why a previously excited electron emits a "weightless particle" with all those special properties! Independent whether we can recreate a complex structure with an advanced function, there are many aspects that we understand and some that we don't in ALL phenomena. Conscious states of a brain are not special in that.

We can't create energy either, as per the First Law.

-Again, this is weird. We can not create energy,but does that means that we can not harvest, quantify and manipulate existing energy of the world? I don't get the syllogism behind your objection! What is your point....ignorance fallacy again, or a meaningful realization?

These are basic and critical aspects of reality (or our realities) that we don't quite understand. It's like trying to catch a cloud without disturbing it. So we have to approach this issue with maximal humility. Our comments in this area need qualifiers because, as with the cause of the Big Bang or what's in the middle of black holes etc, we don't yet have enough knowledge for certainty.

-We will never have absolute certainty even if we were staring absolute reality directly to its face, we wouldn't have a way to tell if something hides beyond that! I don't know why "red herrings"(fallacy) are necessary here.
Sure we don't know many things. Should we ignore what we currently know though....just out of "maximal humility''? Again I don't understand the point of this huge argument from ignorance fallacy.

That neuroscientists have made progress in the field of neuroscience is hardly a surprise. After decades of trying to show how the brain generates consciousness, no result.

-You obviously don't follow the field that close right? The peer reviewed papers are there, you can check the links I posted in a previous post.We know more than you think on how the brain does what it does.

The brain unarguably amplifies and shapes consciousness, but does it generate it?

-Fallacy(Poisoning the well /begging the question). First of all you are assuming that consciousness is a "thing" (who knows what) that "can be amplified" by a biological structure. What do you think that consciousness is?
In science "consciousness" is a quality that brains have to direct their attention to strong environmental and organic stimuli. Its a quality of a process not a label for an entity!!!
In short you are doing the same mistake philosophers did ages ago by suggesting magical entities like Phlogiston, Miasma,Orgone Energy etc etc etc. as explanations for things they didn't understand
Consciousness is not an entity or energy or substances...its a process powered by the brain which enables a specific behavior and qualities.
BTW Do you say the same about digestion?"the digestive track unarguably amplifies and shapes digestion but does it generate it?"
Do you see the problem with your fallacy?

All of it, or does it require other inputs? There's no proof.

-Again....begging the question fallacy. The burden is on those who make an Unnecessary and Non sufficient existential claim. The input needed is provided by the Sensory system. Nothing else is needed to be assumed without positive evidence (Null Hypothesis/Default Position) and we should not create entities(conveniently having the exact properties displayed by a phenomenon) just because we can not answer a question.(Parsimony , Unscientific Paradigm).
Your whole argument is based on logical fallacies. We don't need proof to prove that an unnecessary "entity" doesn't exist.We are not in the Dark Ages anymore!
Our Ignorance is not a reasonable argument. i.e. We don't have to prove the existence of a "spirit mug" outside a mug responsible for the shape of a liquid in a mug. The electromagnetic cohesion of molecules is a necessary and sufficient explanation, EVEN if the "gaps" between atom cores and electrons do not explain "WHY" that is possible.
But again "Why'' questions are useless questions.
I don't know why people are still stuck in medieval logic.

That the brain has a major role in consciousness is not in doubt. It is the key player, so to speak, but is it the only player? The only source?

-Is our digestive track the only source of digestion. Should we assume an invisible substance that enables the property of our track...to digest?
Should we run tests....and test the empty thin air?
Is a specific chemical reaction the only source of combustion? Should we reintroduce Phlogiston as an additional player?
Do you realize how many centuries back in time you are pushing this conversation????

As Popeye and I have suggested earlier, there may be other systems involved in the basic generation of a sense of being, which is then largely shaped by brains.

-The moment to suggest that... is only after you have studied the latest material of the relevant scientific field and only after having positive indications of such a mechanism...not by using fallacious arguments.

It may be that the combination of the digestive, circulatory, endocrine and nervous systems is the generator. Maybe those systems contribute more than just sending resources to a brain?

-You are confusing the mind property of consciousness (the ability of a brain to consciously attend and process stimuli) with the rest of our mind properties and the rest of the nervous system. Nobody says that the brain doesn't need any input to function. On the contrary, babies in communists countries had their brains shut down and died due to the absolute lack of stimuli in government facilities.

Maybe a conscious "brain in a vat" is not possible, even if attached to high quality synthetic replacements of the digestive, circulatory, endocrine systems? Maybe there are subtle dynamics between body systems that we don't yet understand? We don't know.

-...that is not philosophy. You are not taking in to account our epistemology. We have brain in vats as we speak (the paper follows). There is a dynamic between body system and the brain that we do understand (enough). A brain needs stimuli to flourish and a developed nervous system capable to provide them provides the necessary stimuli for a brain to grow, "learn" and address them.
You are addressing a complete different thing here. The body is needed for a brain to develop its maximum potential. But a brain is needed to consciously deal with all those stimuli.

I doubt that too many have tried to research this. Such a project would be extremely complex and expensive, and such blue skies research won't attract funding today. By contrast, neuroscience is a boom field so we can expect future projects to continue treatting a sense of being as a black box, and focus on what happens after that. In that, the situation for neurology is rather like that with cosmology, whose foundation is also a black box.

- again have you ever thought studying the relevant scientific field before making those statements?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... rm-infant/

Another perspective is that consciousness has two aspects, wakefulness and awareness, its "strength" and its "quality".

-You are addressing aspects of quantification(quantifying different qualities) of this specific brain state. Those are qualities of the same brain property....

I don't have much issue with yours and Consul's approach. For me, the crux is a sense of being. That existence feels like something. The problems I run into with these discussions, is trying to get across that, say, a humans' deep sleep is still conscious to some minuscule extent, but to us it's trivial because our regular consciousness is so vivid by comparison. Some would call it proto-consciousness. I personally think of it as reflexes.

-Proto-consciousness??? how assigning meaningless labels can ever explain the phenomenon without studying the actual brain mechanism!?
Limited connectivity between brain modules (responsible for feeding content in to our conscious states)during sleep affects the quality awareness and wakefulness(cut most of external or organic inputs) of those states...do you need to call that state proto-consciousness...ok cool
By giving a name to that...do you think that you have a better understanding of the mechanism?

So I would frame any of these topics as: What is the difference between the most complex non-conscious reflex and the least conscious reflex?

-meaning? what is reflex in your opinion?
Sorry for being a bit rough but it is irritating when I individuals attempt to do Philosophy without knowing their science.
You CAN NOT do the one without the other...period.

[NickGaspar]

[/quote]
In order to conclude that something other than brains might be involved in consciousness, we should have some evidence--any evidence--of something else being involved. Currently there is no such evidence.
[/quote]

Correct, there is a important reason why we use Logic's rules principles and criteria in our syllogisms....to avoid chasing red herrings.
This is what most people do in this thread.