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

[SteveKlinko]

I have given the Illusion proposition all the consideration that it deserves. Decades worth of consideration. Illusionism of one form or another has always been there making a mockery out of the Reality of the World as I know it. There is no Chain of Logic that takes you from the Conscious Visual Experience that I have, to the realization that it is not really there. This is pure Hucksterism. They have got to do better than that. It's almost as if the Illusionists actually do not have Conscious Experiences like I have. They may be Experiencing more at the level of the Neural activity and actually do not have the Qualia of the Visual Experiences. Maybe the Lights are out in their Minds. Seems to me the usual move that I see with Illusionism is that they are the ones, in fact, casually dismissing Conscious Experience. It is up to them to Explain how what is so Obviously true can be so Illusory and wrong.

The thing is, we're looking here for something that current knowledge and wisdom simply doesn't cover. We're looking for something new, that we don't currently have. In this context, I find it odd that you will casually discard ideas that might prove useful without evidence. You seem to just dislike them, so you throw them away. How will you find what you're looking for, if you won't consider such possibilities as there are?

Your 'arguments' against (in this case) 'illusionism' are little more than insults. I see little or no logic in your dismissal.

It's that High Def, Wide Screen, multi Color, Visual Experience that I use to move around in the World without bumping into things. This Visual Experience is there, and it has a purpose. If you did not have that Experience you would bump into things.

I don't take issue with this, but it has no relevance (that I can see) to the discussion we're having here.

Sorry, you can have an open mind about things but as the old saying goes: Don't be so open minded that your Brain falls out of your head and onto the floor.

Oh yes, very drole. I think perhaps you have missed the point of the warning carefully concealed within this 'witticism'. Consider this, if you will:

If you want to continue your study of Conscious Experience with the starting point that it doesn't really exist then your journey is over. I start with the assumption that my Conscious Experiences are real things that must be and can be understood. I do understand that you are not alone in this incomprehensible proposition. But we are at an Impasse on this.

I don't know whether this is a straw-man argument, or whether it has its own Latin description. I have always called it 'Binary Thinking'. Whatever we call it, it is a logical fallacy, one that is more common than it should be.

The misunderstanding here is that considering possibilities is the same as accepting them as true, or believing them to be true, without justification. It is very-definitely not the same. On the contrary, if our considerations lead us to blindly believe/accept what we are considering, we're doing it wrong.

Possibilities are just that. If we're looking for a solution that our current thinking doesn't offer, then we must necessarily consider other, different, possibilities. That doesn't mean that the ones we look at are the right ones, only that we don't yet have the right ones, so any possibility is just that: a possible solution to our problem. This logic explicitly does not require that we accept a different approach just because it's different, or just because it's possible.

There is no impasse here. It's just that your approach seems to involve sticking rigidly to your own preferred avenues of exploration. Your choice. No-one can force you to do otherwise, and nor should they, even if they could. Good luck with your cogitations.

Thank you. And you with yours.

[Pattern-chaser]

By the way, there is an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness.

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting.

Me too, and I find it mildly convincing even without further details. I'm not totally sure that the field involved is an electromagnetic field, as we would normally understand that phrase, but aside from that, yes: a dynamic field of brainwaves is an appealing prospect. I definitely think it has possibilities.

[Sy Borg]

By the way, there is an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness.

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting. Phenomenality may be some type of neuroelectricity, with particular experiences being particular wave patterns in a unitary neuroelectrical field.

Another for the list, although I would think any electricity would do, if configured in such a way.

Similar is neuroscientist, Todd Murphy's, idea that consciousness is how each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other, which I only found out about because I have always found magnetism to be rather counter-intuitive and strange like consciousness: https://www.biospace.com/article/releas ... ic-fields/

The brain experiences its own activity through its magnetism, and subjective experiences are actually the brain's magnetic field, resonating with the brain's electrical activity.

Consciousness is how each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other. Both the earth, with its geomagnetic field, and ordinary magnets, with just two poles, are conscious, but in such a rudimentary way that no one could imagine what they might experience.

Invoking the basic laws for electricity and magnetism ("Maxwell's Equations"), Prof. Todd Murphy points out that electrical currents (including the ones that run through brain cells), create magnetism, which influence the brain's magnetic fields. Its conscious magnetic field(s) "pick up," or resonate with, the brain's electrical activity, receiving its information and making organisms conscious of both mind and body. The brain may choose what to be aware of according to the information in its ongoing electrical signals and magnetic fields, possibly through specific signals that appear in response to potentially important events, especially threats and opportunities.

[chewybrian]

By the way, there is an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness.

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting.

Me too, and I find it mildly convincing even without further details. I'm not totally sure that the field involved is an electromagnetic field, as we would normally understand that phrase, but aside from that, yes: a dynamic field of brainwaves is an appealing prospect. I definitely think it has possibilities.

If consciousness was literally a magnetic field, then wouldn't powerful magnets make us hallucinate or pass out or some such thing? Wouldn't you be tripping testicles in the MRI machine instead of enjoying some classic rock?

[Consul]

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting. Phenomenality may be some type of neuroelectricity, with particular experiences being particular wave patterns in a unitary neuroelectrical field.

Another for the list, although I would think any electricity would do, if configured in such a way.

"The third major idea about the nature of consciousness that has the potential to drive a distinct experimental paradigm is the electromagnetic (EM) field theory of consciousness (Pockett, 1999; 2000; 2002; 2007; 2011). This theory proposes that conscious experiences are identical with certain spatial EM patterns generated by neural activity in the brains of conscious subjects.While the EM field theory is an identity theory, it differs radically from the psychoneural identity theory in that (like functionalism) it predicts the possibility of producing consciousness without neurons. According to the EM field theory, putatively conscious EM fields could in principle be generated using hardware instead of wetware."

(Pockett, Susan. "The Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness: A Testable Hypothesis about the Characteristics of Conscious as Opposed to Non-conscious Fields." Journal of Consciousness Studies 19/11–12 (2012): 191–223. p. 193)

I'm still skeptical about the possibility of artificial consciousness realized by and in inorganic hardware.

[Consul]

Similar is neuroscientist, Todd Murphy's, idea that consciousness is how each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other, which I only found out about because I have always found magnetism to be rather counter-intuitive and strange like consciousness: https://www.biospace.com/article/releas ... ic-fields/

The brain experiences its own activity through its magnetism, and subjective experiences are actually the brain's magnetic field, resonating with the brain's electrical activity.

Consciousness is how each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other. Both the earth, with its geomagnetic field, and ordinary magnets, with just two poles, are conscious, but in such a rudimentary way that no one could imagine what they might experience.

Invoking the basic laws for electricity and magnetism ("Maxwell's Equations"), Prof. Todd Murphy points out that electrical currents (including the ones that run through brain cells), create magnetism, which influence the brain's magnetic fields. Its conscious magnetic field(s) "pick up," or resonate with, the brain's electrical activity, receiving its information and making organisms conscious of both mind and body. The brain may choose what to be aware of according to the information in its ongoing electrical signals and magnetic fields, possibly through specific signals that appear in response to potentially important events, especially threats and opportunities.

"It’s widely assumed that consciousness is the phenomenological correlate of a specific process or processes in the brain. Resolving the problem of how consciousness, which we mean as the capacity for subjective experience, appears as a result of brain function (the “hard problem”), is one of the defining questions of contemporary neuroscience. Here, we propose that consciousness is an intrinsic property of magnetic fields. This implies that even a single common magnet would possess a rudimentary consciousness. A natural corollary is that cognitive complexity relies on structural or functional complexity in the magnetic field that supports it."

(Murphy, Todd. "Solving the “Hard Problem”: Consciousness as an Intrinsic Property of Magnetic Fields." Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 10/8 (2019): 646–659 p. 646) [free PDF]

Conscious magnets—really?—no, silly! Murphy's "magnetopsychism" is totally implausible. Like panpsychists, he thinks—wrongly, I think—that life is inessential to consciousness.

As for the ontological aspect, physical fields aren't substances, so they cannot be subjects or substrates of consciousness. If consciousness is a field of brainwaves, then its subject or substrate is the brain or the whole organism.

[Sy Borg]

Similar is neuroscientist, Todd Murphy's, idea that consciousness is how each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other, which I only found out about because I have always found magnetism to be rather counter-intuitive and strange like consciousness: https://www.biospace.com/article/releas ... ic-fields/

The brain experiences its own activity through its magnetism, and subjective experiences are actually the brain's magnetic field, resonating with the brain's electrical activity.

Consciousness is how each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other. Both the earth, with its geomagnetic field, and ordinary magnets, with just two poles, are conscious, but in such a rudimentary way that no one could imagine what they might experience.

Invoking the basic laws for electricity and magnetism ("Maxwell's Equations"), Prof. Todd Murphy points out that electrical currents (including the ones that run through brain cells), create magnetism, which influence the brain's magnetic fields. Its conscious magnetic field(s) "pick up," or resonate with, the brain's electrical activity, receiving its information and making organisms conscious of both mind and body. The brain may choose what to be aware of according to the information in its ongoing electrical signals and magnetic fields, possibly through specific signals that appear in response to potentially important events, especially threats and opportunities.

"It’s widely assumed that consciousness is the phenomenological correlate of a specific process or processes in the brain. Resolving the problem of how consciousness, which we mean as the capacity for subjective experience, appears as a result of brain function (the “hard problem”), is one of the defining questions of contemporary neuroscience. Here, we propose that consciousness is an intrinsic property of magnetic fields. This implies that even a single common magnet would possess a rudimentary consciousness. A natural corollary is that cognitive complexity relies on structural or functional complexity in the magnetic field that supports it."

(Murphy, Todd. "Solving the “Hard Problem”: Consciousness as an Intrinsic Property of Magnetic Fields." Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 10/8 (2019): 646–659 p. 646) [free PDF]

Conscious magnets—really?—no, silly! Murphy's "magnetopsychism" is totally implausible. Like panpsychists, he thinks—wrongly, I think—that life is inessential to consciousness.

As for the ontological aspect, physical fields aren't substances, so they cannot be subjects or substrates of consciousness. If consciousness is a field of brainwaves, then its subject or substrate is the brain or the whole organism.

You need to take his statement as intended. He is a neuroscientist, not a demented lunatic. He is not saying that magnets are fully conscious - thinking, analysing, philosophising, researching, loving, hating etc - it's referring to one unit of consciousness. Personally, I call one unit of consciousness a "reflex".

[Sy Borg]

I'm still skeptical about the possibility of artificial consciousness realized by and in inorganic hardware.

Sensible. Thus far, consciousness as we interpret it has only ever been realise by wetware.

Ultimately, the point of consciousness is to keep a metabolism alive. So a machine awareness would logically need to have this same fundamental goal from which to extrapolate or it cannot possibly resemble animal/human consciousness, only ape it.

[Consul]

Conscious magnets—really?—no, silly! Murphy's "magnetopsychism" is totally implausible. Like panpsychists, he thinks—wrongly, I think—that life is inessential to consciousness.

You need to take his statement as intended. He is a neuroscientist, not a demented lunatic. He is not saying that magnets are fully conscious - thinking, analysing, philosophising, researching, loving, hating etc - it's referring to one unit of consciousness. Personally, I call one unit of consciousness a "reflex".

Magnets (let alone magnetic fields) don't exhibit any reflex behavior, and ascribing subjective sensations to them (despite their lack of sense organs) does sound loony to me.

[Sy Borg]

Conscious magnets—really?—no, silly! Murphy's "magnetopsychism" is totally implausible. Like panpsychists, he thinks—wrongly, I think—that life is inessential to consciousness.

You need to take his statement as intended. He is a neuroscientist, not a demented lunatic. He is not saying that magnets are fully conscious - thinking, analysing, philosophising, researching, loving, hating etc - it's referring to one unit of consciousness. Personally, I call one unit of consciousness a "reflex".

Magnets (let alone magnetic fields) don't exhibit any reflex behavior, and ascribing subjective sensations to them (despite their lack of sense organs) does sound loony to me.

Sensations mediated by brains are very different to raw sensations.

[Consul]

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting. Phenomenality may be some type of neuroelectricity, with particular experiences being particular wave patterns in a unitary neuroelectrical field.

QUOTE>
"What are brainwaves?
Neurons communicate by generating brief electrical impulses (action potentials) and by brief alterations in voltage at their synapses (synaptic potentials) that cause release of neurotransmitters. These very weak electrical signals can be detected by inserting a microelectrode into the brain to penetrate or come into very close contact with a neuron. When a large number of neurons operate in synchrony, the combined effect of these small voltage signals builds, like the thunderous applause in an auditorium from people clapping hands in synchrony. Electrical activity in thousands of neurons operating together in the cerebral cortex (the outermost layer of the brain), builds to the extent that the electricity can penetrate the skull and be detected by electrodes on the scalp. Surprisingly, these electrical fluctuations are oscillatory (thus the name ‘brainwaves’). The rhythmic electrical activity oscillates at characteristic frequencies, from less than one cycle per second (delta waves) to over 60 cycles per second (gamma waves). Since this electrical activity reflects information processing going on in neural networks, normal and abnormal operation of cognitive functions can be assessed by monitoring brainwaves, and brain function can be altered by electrical or other means to change brainwaves. Moreover, as waves of all types interact in complex ways, brainwaves can couple together electrical activity in populations of neurons without them being wired together by synaptic connections. Coupling neurons in this way can form dynamic functional assemblies of neurons that synchronize, filter, and manipulate information processing in the brain."

—R. Douglas Fields: https://psychwire.com/ask/topics/2jtge2 ... brainwaves
<QUOTE

Unfortunately:

QUOTE>
"We are only seeing the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Our current understanding of brainwaves is superficial. Current technology to interface with neural circuits is horribly primitive and utterly inadequate to achieve the potential we imagine is possible if we could really interface seamlessly with the electric brain, and if we understood in detail how the brain codes, processes, and retrieves information. But we are at a turning point in human history. For the first time, we are beginning to analyze and manipulate the human brain through electricity—the electricity that infuses this bodily organ with life and the electricity that we deliver into its cellular circuitry. This is significant, because in using this force of nature we are dealing directly with the fundamental mechanism by which this astonishing organ operates."

(Fields, R. Douglas. Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps us Change for the Better. Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2020. pp. 388-9)
<QUOTE

QUOTE>
"Brainwaves are categorized, like light waves, in spectral bands by their frequencies of oscillation. These different frequency bands are designated by the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and theta, but unfortunately, the alphabetic sequence of Greek letters does not correspond to the sequential increase in frequency, because some frequencies of brainwaves were discovered after certain Greek letters had already been used to name frequencies discovered earlier. Also, like colors, the cutoff frequencies for brainwave frequency bands vary somewhat in usage, just as the frequency of light waves that we call “yellow” is not sharply defined as it transitions into orange at the lower frequencies and green at the higher frequencies."
(p. 99)

"It is important to understand that, contrary to the simplistic descriptions that are sometimes given in the popular press, each frequency band of brainwaves does not “do” a specific cognitive function. Although some mental states are associated with each of these bands, these are generalizations. And just as there are a million or more colors, not just the nine basic colors we name, so too do brainwaves come in nearly infinite variation and combination."
(p. 102)

"Every frequency band of brainwave oscillation is the result of multiple complex processes taking place simultaneously in millions of neurons locally and globally in the brain: Each brainwave frequency band is not generated by a single oscillator resonating at a specific frequency. Brainwaves are interdependent. It is fascinating to look out at the ocean as breakers roll in and crash on the shore, and we can sit and enjoy watching the sea like this for hours. Watching the surf break is spellbinding not only for its natural beauty, but because of its intriguing complexity and endless variation. There is a rhythm to the waves, but the rhythm is dynamic—it changes. A series of enormous breakers will roll in and then there will be a hush, and in the lull smaller waves splash and sizzle in the wet sand. Superimposed on every ocean wave are smaller waves and ripples, all of them the product of countless forces of nature: the wind puffing in gusts, blowing in forceful flurries, and raging in gales of prevailing wind patterns globally and locally; swirling currents; swelling and ebbing tides; the forces of fluids in motion; the frictional drag of the shallow sandy bottom on the moving masses of water; the reflection of a violent impact with rock—all of these are recorded and displayed in each wave as it approaches the shore. So it is with brainwaves. Wave riding on wave, every one is the collective product of countless interactions, like a rhythmic seascape vibrant with global forces leaving traces in salt and surge."
(pp. 103-4)

(Fields, R. Douglas. Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps us Change for the Better. Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2020.)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

Magnets (let alone magnetic fields) don't exhibit any reflex behavior, and ascribing subjective sensations to them (despite their lack of sense organs) does sound loony to me.

Sensations mediated by brains are very different to raw sensations.

A sensation is a sensation is a sensation.

[Sy Borg]

Magnets (let alone magnetic fields) don't exhibit any reflex behavior, and ascribing subjective sensations to them (despite their lack of sense organs) does sound loony to me.

Sensations mediated by brains are very different to raw sensations.

A sensation is a sensation is a sensation.

So it might seem to someone with 10¹⁵ connections in his brain busily shaping his reality in a way that helped his ancestors survive and reproduce.

Empathy doesn't work at different scales. Any experiences had at other scales will surely be foreign to our usual conceptions.

[Pattern-chaser]

By the way, there is an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness.

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting.

Me too, and I find it mildly convincing even without further details. I'm not totally sure that the field involved is an electromagnetic field, as we would normally understand that phrase, but aside from that, yes: a dynamic field of brainwaves is an appealing prospect. I definitely think it has possibilities.

If consciousness was literally a magnetic field, then wouldn't powerful magnets make us hallucinate or pass out or some such thing? Wouldn't you be tripping testicles in the MRI machine instead of enjoying some classic rock?

Yes, I agree. But I find the idea of consciousness being a field - or being supported by a field - of some sort to be quite compelling. A "dynamic field" as originally suggested, that is. It fits well with the evidence we perceive, IMO.

[SteveKlinko]

By the way, there is an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness.

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting.

Me too, and I find it mildly convincing even without further details. I'm not totally sure that the field involved is an electromagnetic field, as we would normally understand that phrase, but aside from that, yes: a dynamic field of brainwaves is an appealing prospect. I definitely think it has possibilities.

If consciousness was literally a magnetic field, then wouldn't powerful magnets make us hallucinate or pass out or some such thing? Wouldn't you be tripping testicles in the MRI machine instead of enjoying some classic rock?

Yes, I agree. But I find the idea of consciousness being a field - or being supported by a field - of some sort to be quite compelling. A "dynamic field" as originally suggested, that is. It fits well with the evidence we perceive, IMO.

Saying Consciousness is somehow related to Fields takes advantage of the ambiguousness of the word Consciousness. When you nail Consciousness down to specific Conscious Experiences like Redness, the Standard A Tone, or the Salty Taste, the urge to think that these are a result of the action of Electric or Magnetic Fields evaporates. The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience. What would be a chain of Logic that takes you from Fields to Conscious Experience. I just cannot see any Logic to it. But as I always say everything is on the table with regard to Conscious Experience, so this could, in the end, be right.