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

[SteveKlinko]

I appreciate your well thought out response. My opinion is that all speculations and theories are on the table when it comes to Consciousness. However, there is no theory or speculation that can Explain any of these Conscious Experiences: Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste, the Smell of Bleach, or the Touch of a Rough Surface. If you can find a theory that can Explain any of these then you have got something. I specialize in the Experience of Redness and all the other Colors of Light. I have not been able to find anyone on this Planet that has a good Explanation for the Visual Experience of Redness.

On that specifically I wouldn't trust any answer that didn't get in directly, identify, and examine that process in its native context. The really up close and personal aspects of sensory experience, like the taste of coffee or seeing the color red, would either be hidden so deep in data contexts that we'd have a lot of decoding to get anywhere near them or/and the proper media on which they're happening is something we don't understand and in that case still have a much longer ways to stretch the term physicalism.

Yes, all so called Theories of Consciousness never get to the specificity of a particular Experience like the Experience of Redness.

[SteveKlinko]

First, we are assuming that humans fit the definition of consciousness. But we are not conscious of who is conscious. So a neighbor, a friend, a pet, might not be conscious. They might simply be robotic creatures, elements of nature that function in nature and die in nature without being conscious. For all you know, I might not be conscious. Here I am talking about the philosophical, rather than the scientific, aspect of consciousness. Because, as SteveClinko says, everything is just a conscious experience, we do not need to know. So long as you are conscious, you might as well not waste your consciousness pondering consciousness, which we do not have the ability or need to determine.

Of course, I might actually be the only Conscious Being. I know I am Conscious so you might just be a Robotic creature. With the study of Consciousness, you have got to make some initial assumptions, simply because we don't have clue. You need to resist being so open minded that your Brain pops out of your head and onto the floor, as the old saying goes. I start with the commonsense assumption that there is an external Physical World and there is a separate inner Conscious World. I like to say that these two Worlds exist in Physical Space and Conscious Space respectively. The Physical Mind (Brain) exists in Physical Space and the Conscious Mind exists in Conscious Space. We know that there is some sort of Connection between the PM and the CM. The great Scientific Quest is to Explain that Connection, and further, to Explain what all those Conscious Experiences are that are in the CM.

[SteveKlinko]

Because what I experience is stuff that is other than myself, and other than myself includes my experiencing the 'gaze" (Sartre) of others, there must be other centres of experience. I am a subject of experiences, and these experiences include other subjects of experience.

From my point of view your Experiences are not other than yourself. You are your Experiences. You are the Conscious Light that you See in your Conscious Visual Experience. That Light is part of what YOU ARE. More dramatically, it can be said that YOU ARE THAT LIGHT.

[Belindi]

Because what I experience is stuff that is other than myself, and other than myself includes my experiencing the 'gaze" (Sartre) of others, there must be other centres of experience. I am a subject of experiences, and these experiences include other subjects of experience.

From my point of view your Experiences are not other than yourself. You are your Experiences. You are the Conscious Light that you See in your Conscious Visual Experience. That Light is part of what YOU ARE. More dramatically, it can be said that YOU ARE THAT LIGHT.

You are right and what you say is what I think too. There has to be an environment that is not-me . You too are a facet of that light. Environment which affects the centre of experience named Belindi includes the centre of experience named SteveKlinko. The fact that you (as it happens rightly) objected to what I wrote indicates to me that you are a centre of experience that is not me.

[Consul]

From my point of view your Experiences are not other than yourself. You are your Experiences.

This view makes no coherent sense! For where there is subjective experience or experiential subjectivity, there must be a subject of experience which is not itself an experience or a "bundle" of experiences. Experiences cannot exist without being experienced by something/somebody, and they cannot experience themselves; so there must be an experiencer distinct from them whose experiences they are. No complex of experiential (mental) items can possibly be its own subject!

[Sy Borg]

... I try to specify a particular Conscious Experience and study it. A particular Conscious Experience like the Experience of Redness could be compared to a particular kind of Energy like Kinetic Energy.

Many consciousness analogies don't work for me because they are focused on the visual. Given that 80% of human sensory information is visual, this bias is to be expected, but it is a bias nonetheless.

Vision is the least sensitive of the main senses. The phenomena is less potent than sound, and much less potent than touch, smell and taste. That is, visual and aural phenomena need to be far more intense to harm you than that which we touch, smell and taste. Taste and smell are the most intimate, because they connect directly us with our most fundamental connection to the Earth. Breathing.

Breathing is our fundamental connection to our planet, perhaps fundamental to our sense of being. I breathe, therefore I am. There is just one thing that invokes fear in people with severe damage to their amygdala - being unable to breathe: https://www.theguardian.com/science/neu ... nce-health. Thus, the amygdala does not create a fear response. That appears to happen at a more fundamental level.

After all, what is respiration? In the very first organisms, the functions of respiration, digestion and circulation would have been one function - a simple exchange with the environment through absorption. It's that connection with environment that is critical and our most fundamental and intimate connection with the Earth is breathing.

I breathe, therefore I potentially am? Vision, by contrast, is the sense that is least related to breath, to this basic sense of being. Visual processing tends to be much more abstract and cerebral than other sensory information. So Mary's sensation of red, as far as I can tell, is far from fundamental. While perceiving redness is a type of connection to the environment, it is less fundamental, potent and visceral than breath-based senses like small and taste.

What if Mary had never experienced sweet tasting food? That everything she ate was sour, salty, bitter or umami. Instead, Mary could be given all possible the theoretical information about tastes but one would still expect her to be shocked. Ultimately, my guess (as at Feb 2022 haha) is that qualia does not stem from the brain alone, but its interaction with other primary body systems.

[Consul]

Breathing is our fundamental connection to our planet, perhaps fundamental to our sense of being. I breathe, therefore I am.

The Latin for "soul" is "anima", whose original meaning is "the air breathed by an animal, the breath; breath or breathing as the characteristic manifestation of life (as opposed to death)." (Oxford Latin Dictionary)

The two Greek words for "soul": (1) "pneuma", which is akin to the verb "pnein" = "to blow, to breathe" and originally means "breath", "wind", "breeze", "air"; and (2) "psyche", which is akin to the verb "psykhein" = "to blow, breathe". (Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek)

[SteveKlinko]

Because what I experience is stuff that is other than myself, and other than myself includes my experiencing the 'gaze" (Sartre) of others, there must be other centres of experience. I am a subject of experiences, and these experiences include other subjects of experience.

From my point of view your Experiences are not other than yourself. You are your Experiences. You are the Conscious Light that you See in your Conscious Visual Experience. That Light is part of what YOU ARE. More dramatically, it can be said that YOU ARE THAT LIGHT.

You are right and what you say is what I think too. There has to be an environment that is not-me . You too are a facet of that light. Environment which affects the centre of experience named Belindi includes the centre of experience named SteveKlinko. The fact that you (as it happens rightly) objected to what I wrote indicates to me that you are a centre of experience that is not me.

I think I can buy that.

[SteveKlinko]

From my point of view your Experiences are not other than yourself. You are your Experiences.

This view makes no coherent sense! For where there is subjective experience or experiential subjectivity, there must be a subject of experience which is not itself an experience or a "bundle" of experiences. Experiences cannot exist without being experienced by something/somebody, and they cannot experience themselves; so there must be an experiencer distinct from them whose experiences they are. No complex of experiential (mental) items can possibly be its own subject!

We can say that being Self Aware is being aware of our Conscious Minds. However, the Conscious Mind is not a Conscious Experience, but rather the Conscious Mind is the Thing that Experiences the Conscious Experiences. The upshot of all this is that, since we cannot Experience the Conscious Mind as an Experience, we cannot really be Self Aware. We can only be Aware of our Experiences. I remember the first time I tried to experiment with Self Awareness. I concentrated real hard and was thinking: There it is, I got it. But I quickly realized that I was just being aware of some muscle tensions in my forehead and eyes. I eventually came to the conclusion that it was not possible to be Self Aware. Sure, we can conceptually speculate about a Conscious Self, but I don't think we can be Aware of the actual Conscious Self Thing. For now, with the state of our understanding being what it is, we should just say that it is the unobservable Observer. But thinking about this further we realize that without Experience the Observer is nothing. We can ask the question: Does an Observer actually even exist? If the Observer is nothing without Conscious Experience, then we can conclude that the Observer is the Conscious Experience, and we are that Conscious Experience. The limit of this is that we realize there is no Observer, but only the Experiences. But we most certainly ARE the Experiences even if there is an Observer because this is all generated inside our Minds.

[SteveKlinko]

... I try to specify a particular Conscious Experience and study it. A particular Conscious Experience like the Experience of Redness could be compared to a particular kind of Energy like Kinetic Energy.

Many consciousness analogies don't work for me because they are focused on the visual. Given that 80% of human sensory information is visual, this bias is to be expected, but it is a bias nonetheless.

Vision is the least sensitive of the main senses. The phenomena is less potent than sound, and much less potent than touch, smell and taste. That is, visual and aural phenomena need to be far more intense to harm you than that which we touch, smell and taste. Taste and smell are the most intimate, because they connect directly us with our most fundamental connection to the Earth. Breathing.

Breathing is our fundamental connection to our planet, perhaps fundamental to our sense of being. I breathe, therefore I am. There is just one thing that invokes fear in people with severe damage to their amygdala - being unable to breathe: https://www.theguardian.com/science/neu ... nce-health. Thus, the amygdala does not create a fear response. That appears to happen at a more fundamental level.

After all, what is respiration? In the very first organisms, the functions of respiration, digestion and circulation would have been one function - a simple exchange with the environment through absorption. It's that connection with environment that is critical and our most fundamental and intimate connection with the Earth is breathing.

I breathe, therefore I potentially am? Vision, by contrast, is the sense that is least related to breath, to this basic sense of being. Visual processing tends to be much more abstract and cerebral than other sensory information. So Mary's sensation of red, as far as I can tell, is far from fundamental. While perceiving redness is a type of connection to the environment, it is less fundamental, potent and visceral than breath-based senses like small and taste.
What if Mary had never experienced sweet tasting food? That everything she ate was sour, salty, bitter or umami. Instead, Mary could be given all possible the theoretical information about tastes but one would still expect her to be shocked. Ultimately, my guess (as at Feb 2022 haha) is that qualia does not stem from the brain alone, but its interaction with other primary body systems.

Ok, but I am primarily interested in the Conscious Visual Experience. It's irrelevant which Sense you believe is more important.

[Pattern-chaser]

Experiences cannot exist without being experienced by something/somebody, and they cannot experience themselves; so there must be an experiencer distinct from them whose experiences they are.

Or perhaps there must be an experiencer, but one who is not 'distinct' from their own experiences.

[Atla]

Experiences cannot exist without being experienced by something/somebody, and they cannot experience themselves; so there must be an experiencer distinct from them whose experiences they are.

Yes because reality should conform to our grammatical rules.

[Sy Borg]

Ok, but I am primarily interested in the Conscious Visual Experience. It's irrelevant which Sense you believe is more important.

I have no beliefs. You either accept that taste and smell are closer to the basis of qualia than vision, or you persist with the cul-de-sac you are pursuing. Trying to understand qualia via vision is akin to trying to understand digestion through dentistry. Theories of consciousness fail due to incorrect initial assumptions about it.

[Atla]

I have no beliefs. You either accept that taste and smell are closer to the basis of qualia than vision, or you persist with the cul-de-sac you are pursuing. Trying to understand qualia via vision is akin to trying to understand digestion through dentistry. Theories of consciousness fail due to incorrect initial assumptions about it.

There is zero scientific explanation for qualia in the brain, and there is zero scientific explanation for qualia in the digestive system or in the respiratory system. There is zero scientific explanation anywhere.

[Sy Borg]

I have no beliefs. You either accept that taste and smell are closer to the basis of qualia than vision, or you persist with the cul-de-sac you are pursuing. Trying to understand qualia via vision is akin to trying to understand digestion through dentistry. Theories of consciousness fail due to incorrect initial assumptions about it.

There is zero scientific explanation for qualia in the brain, and there is zero scientific explanation for qualia in the digestive system or in the respiratory system. There is zero scientific explanation anywhere.

Obviously, hence the hard problem.

Still, qualia is a real and remains unexplained. I don't think consciousness lies in any of those systems, but (as I have said many times on the forum over the years) that it most likely stems from the synergy of various primary systems, not just one. The correlation is indisputable, but there may be more to it.