Philosophy Discussion Forums

Perhaps somebody else then catches a multiple personality disorder and develops an additional consciousness for somebody else without a brain. The corresponding individual without a brain is then capable to claim that this consciousness belongs to him.

Atla wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 1:02 pm

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 12:54 pm

Atla wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 11:41 am

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 11:32 am


-I Quoted his words...so your above statement is irrelevant and factually wrong accusation.


- Magical thinking ,is a documented behavior.*
People make up agents, substances that conveniently are the source of the properties of an observed phenomenon and see intention and purpose in natural processes. Superstition, supernatural claims,Imagined substances, Agency in nature are common characteristics of this type of thinking.
By bringing up"instrumentalism" proves that it is you that you can not differentiate between two completely irrelevant concepts.

I guess this is your way to avoid acknowledging the correct points made and focus is useless deepities. I know your tactics..you never attempt to dissect an argument or stay on the topic due to the fear of getting exposed. So why did you even pop up in this thread if you are not going to stick on the things said and written. Is it an echo chamber maintenance thing?

*https://aeon.co/essays/magical-thinking ... urce=1-2-2

Yes you quoted his words, and then massively misinterpreted them. Which is what you do with almost anything I write too btw. So much for tactics.

You wish.Those questions are clear" why" questions.
Again I quote;"" Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example? ""
If you are going to argue that those are not "why" questions then you are the one who is doing all the misinterpretation.

In nature and in science there aren't any 'why' questions.
Do we ask why atomic particles are prone to decay or why a previously excited electrons emits photons? No this is how things are and you and anyone who seeks "meaning" behind natural processes should update his "theology."

Again: the English word "why" has at least two meanings, here it means "how is it so". You can't contextualize very well.

lol....and this changes the meaning of these questions...how exactly?
lets see:
Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?
why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does
why an experience of red rather than green, for example?
Well, besides that they are meaningless questions, if you put it in the actual questions....they are obviously NOT "how" questions.
"How is this so"an experience of red rather than green??? yeap...still a meaningless why question.
Sorry your claim rejected.

detail wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 1:45 pm Perhaps somebody else then catches a multiple personality disorder and develops an additional consciousness for somebody else without a brain. The corresponding individual without a brain is then capable to claim that this consciousness belongs to him.

-When that happens....pls don't forget to send us a memo.....

Sy Borg wrote: ↑May 31st, 2021, 8:52 pmWell your statement "researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about." is correct to a point.

Well, the researchers do have an idea—an empirically supported one: Consciousness is "ignited" when certain parameters of (patterns of) neural activity in (certain segments of) the brain reach a certain threshold. The field or stream of consciousness is constituted by a certain neural network in the CNS, whose specific dynamics makes the difference between it and other neural networks which do not constitute any conscious states.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑May 31st, 2021, 8:52 pmFirst 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.

From the perspective of reductive physicalism, conscious states aren't ontologically emergent. There is a distinction between a causal mechanism that is different from what it causes, and a compositional/constitutional mechanism that is identical with what it is a mechanism of. Reductionists are looking for the latter!

In order to avoid a misunderstanding: A compositional/constitutional mechanism of some phenomenon involves causal processes too, but the causation involved in it is "horizontal" or "sideways" causation or interaction that takes place between parts of it on the same level, whereas the causation involved in a causal mechanism of some emergent phenomenon is "vertical" or "upward" causation, where a lower-level event or process causes or produces a higher-level phenomenon (which is different from the mechanism causing or producing it).

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 1:46 pm lol....and this changes the meaning of these questions...how exactly?
lets see:
Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?
why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does
why an experience of red rather than green, for example?
Well, besides that they are meaningless questions, if you put it in the actual questions....they are obviously NOT "how" questions.
"How is this so"an experience of red rather than green??? yeap...still a meaningless why question.
Sorry your claim rejected.

No, it just means you can't grasp the Hard problem.

Atla wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 2:05 pm

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 1:46 pm lol....and this changes the meaning of these questions...how exactly?
lets see:
Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?
why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does
why an experience of red rather than green, for example?
Well, besides that they are meaningless questions, if you put it in the actual questions....they are obviously NOT "how" questions.
"How is this so"an experience of red rather than green??? yeap...still a meaningless why question.
Sorry your claim rejected.

No, it just means you can't grasp the Hard problem.

Sorry but "how is it so=why" questions do not point to a "hard problem". They just point to kindergarten philosophy where kids ask meaningless why questions.
There is a really good reason why scientists don't test questions like "How is this so"an experience of red rather than green" lol.
Thanks for sharing your beliefs though.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑May 31st, 2021, 8:52 pmAnother 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?

Degrees of wakefulness (aka "levels of consciousness") are degrees of brightness of consciousness, which are determined by the degree of extrospective awareness and introspective (self-)awareness.

A reflex is "an immediate involuntary stereotyped response to a stimulus" (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology), and the difference between a (phenomenally) conscious reflex and a (phenomenally) nonconscious one is simply that the latter isn't accompanied by or doesn't involve any subjective experience. An organism needs to be innerly affected or "impressed" somehow in order to be (phenomenally) conscious; and the relevant kind of innerness isn't just spatial innerness, but mental or spiritual innerness in the sense of subjectiveness.

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 2:12 pmSorry but "how is it so=why" questions do not point to a "hard problem". They just point to kindergarten philosophy where kids ask meaningless why questions.
There is a really good reason why scientists don't test questions like "How is this so"an experience of red rather than green" lol.
Thanks for sharing your beliefs though.

There are two central kinds of how-questions that the neuroscientists try to answer:

"* Generic Consciousness: How might neural properties explain when a state is conscious rather than not?
* Specific Consciousness: How might neural properties explain what the content of a conscious state is?"

The Neuroscience of Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... roscience/

Consul wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 3:47 pm

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 2:12 pmSorry but "how is it so=why" questions do not point to a "hard problem". They just point to kindergarten philosophy where kids ask meaningless why questions.
There is a really good reason why scientists don't test questions like "How is this so"an experience of red rather than green" lol.
Thanks for sharing your beliefs though.

There are two central kinds of how-questions that the neuroscientists try to answer:

"* Generic Consciousness: How might neural properties explain when a state is conscious rather than not?
* Specific Consciousness: How might neural properties explain what the content of a conscious state is?"

The Neuroscience of Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... roscience/

Sure, you are talking about A.the actual mental ability and B.the content of it. I slightly change the second question and split it in two parts
a.The mechanism on how the conscious content emerges
b.The content it self.
So its a 3part question.
1. how conscious states are achieved
2a.how the conscious content is introduced
2b.What is this content.

For all three parts we have amazing breakthroughs in Neuroscience and Cognitive science in general.
For the first question we have all those studies on the Ascending Reticular Activating System,the Central Lateral Thalamus and their fundamental role in our conscious states during their arousal(a specific neural activity reaching a specific threshold as you already mentioned).
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/tiny- ... sciousness
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/

For the second question we have tones of papers on how during a conscious state the brain can connect different areas where memory, pattern recognition, language, symbolic thinking,reasoning, etc etc are and thus introduce content in a processed stimulus.
https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+the+brain+

The third question was recently addresses by a technical applications capable to decode complex conscious thoughts with up to 85% accuracy.
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news- ... ughts.html

This is a reasonably fresh. (this May)
New study provides evidence for the role of Anterior insula as a gate for conscious access of sensory information.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fullt ... all%3Dtrue

detail wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 1:45 pm Perhaps somebody else then catches a multiple personality disorder and develops an additional consciousness for somebody else without a brain. The corresponding individual without a brain is then capable to claim that this consciousness belongs to him.

There are no living humans without brains, by the way.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 5:38 pm

detail wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 1:45 pm Perhaps somebody else then catches a multiple personality disorder and develops an additional consciousness for somebody else without a brain. The corresponding individual without a brain is then capable to claim that this consciousness belongs to him.

There are no living humans without brains, by the way.

Well some comments make me skeptical about that.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 5:38 pm There are no living humans without brains, by the way.

That statement is only valid when you count 'a tiny fraction of a brain' to be 'a brain', which by definition is assumptious when you cannot provide evidence for the reason why that specific fraction of a brain would enable a human to have a full conscious experience and to live a 'normal life' (i.e. with a wife, children and a job, for 44 years), and which can be considered invalid from several perspectives, including terminological correctness.

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Consul has several times used terminological correctness as an argument, for example when it concerns consciousness and wheter plants can possibly posses of consciousness experience, in light of recent discoveries that the root system of plants contain cells that function similar to brain neurons and many neurotransmitters including dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin and histamine.

It does not seem just to turn the terminological correctness argument upside down in this topic. It is done so just to maintain the idea that consciousness is caused in the brain and without a sound substantiation.

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 6:04 am

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!!!

I have referred to consciousness as a process for years. Never have I treated it as a "thing". Save your straw for the horses.

Ultimately, your statement "In science "consciousness" is a quality that brains have ..." summarises why you did not understand aspects of my prior post.

The claim is akin to saying that digestion is defined as the property of the stomach. That would also be wrong, given the many smaller, less sophisticated metabolisms found in nature. Further, the claim is simply wrong, an attempt to define the problem away. Consciousness is not defined as the property of brains, it is defined in broader terms of wakefulness, awareness and a sense of being. Likewise the definition of digestion is not "a property of the stomach".

The crux of the issue is that both energy and information can be processed in disparate ways, and there are numerous interdependencies in the body that are still unknown or poorly understood. To assume that consciousness is only a property of brains without even considering for a moment that there may be broader systemic processes at play is just an assumption. .

You will obviously not be able to provide references that prove that consciousness is generated in the brain. Such a proof would be big news, akin to the first image of a black hole. A few years back it was widely reported that the claustrum was the source of consciousness. That was all over the news for a while, until it was realised that the claustrum acts like an on/off switch.

No one yet knows how a sense of being is generated. If you don't believe that the "hard problem" exists, then you should state why.

Consul wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 2:14 pm... the difference between a (phenomenally) conscious reflex and a (phenomenally) nonconscious one is simply that the latter isn't accompanied by or doesn't involve any subjective experience. An organism needs to be innerly affected or "impressed" somehow in order to be (phenomenally) conscious; and the relevant kind of innerness isn't just spatial innerness, but mental or spiritual innerness in the sense of subjectiveness.

I like "innerness", but why did you exclude spatial innerness? That feels like something too, doesn't it?