Philosophy Discussion Forums

My logic shows that consciousness cannot be caused in the brain.

Simple logic makes it evident at first sight: the origin of valuing cannot be value (a simple logical truth¹: something cannot be the origin of itself).

When one looks at the origin of consciousness, one looks at the origin of a manifestation. Properties such as cognition, perception and memory are manifestations. At question would be: why do those manifestations exist? What is the cause or origin?

The mentioned properties can only become manifested on the basis of information obtained by the senses, i.e. the mentioned properties of consciousness follow the origin of the senses. The scope of the quest can therefore be reduced to explaining the origin of the senses.

The origin of the senses is nessesarily valuing because one is to assume a preceding position of 'lack of reason'. if it were to be otherwise, there would be nothing to be sensed. The scope of the quest can therefor be reduced to explaining the origin of valuing.

As is evident from the mentioned simple logical truth¹, what precedes valuing cannot be value and one is therefor required to look outside the scope of the individual for the origin of valuing.

Based on this logic the origin of consciousness must lay outside the scope of the individual.

The brain and human body may merely be an instrument.

There are new upcoming consciousness theories named 'filter' or 'reducing valve' theory of mind

(2019) Consciousness is a property of the Universe that is filtered by the brain
According to the decades-long research of Dr. Peter Fenwick (Cambridge, UK), a highly regarded neuropsychologist who has been studying the human brain, consciousness, and the phenomenon of near death experience (NDE) for 50 years consciousness cannot be an emergent property of the brain and its metabolism. Fenwick believes that consciousness actually exists independently and outside of the brain. In Fenwick’s view, the brain does not create or produce consciousness; rather, it filters it.

Does Consciousness Exist Outside of the Brain?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/bl ... -the-brain

(2020) The Filter Theory of the Mind-Brain Connection
The filter model sees consciousness as outside the physical body and brain. The filter, or reducing valve, theory of the mind-brain relationship may be gaining ground in part because of the growing interest in forms of universal consciousness emerging from both physics and neuroscience. The seriousness with which this old idea is being treated by a wide range of scientists suggests that the top-down or bottom-up question of mind and brain is far from settled.
https://medium.com/top-down-or-bottom-u ... 48d7184b24

Mind Beyond the Brain - Reducing Valves and Metaphysics
https://oxford.universitypressscholarsh ... -chapter-9

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 10:11 pm 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.

Do you believe that philosophy will be able to provide an answer? If so, do you have a suggestion for potential valid theories?

arjand wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 7:48 pm

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.

We don't decide what counts as brain or not. The fact is we know a brain is a versatile organ and it can regenerate connections even after massive injuries. Its was never about the size,but the "size" of the function. Neanderthals had bigger brains but that did not help them avoid the Darwin's award. So a brain stem is a brain and it contains the Ascending Reticular Activating system which is important for every conscious state.

arjand wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:24 am

-"My logic shows that consciousness cannot be caused in the brain."
-No, your logic shows that you don't want your existence to be contingent on a biological organ prone to damage and with an expiration date.(Death Denying Ideology). The evidence show that a brain is a Necessary and Sufficient explanation for all our mind properties.

-"When one looks at the origin of consciousness, one looks at the origin of a manifestation. Properties such as cognition, perception and memory are manifestations. At question would be: why do those manifestations exist? What is the cause or origin?"

-"Why" questions are fallacious. There isn't a "why" in physical phenomena. There is only How those manifestations and properties of matter prevailed. The answer is one. Survival advantage. So you need to study Evolutionary Biology to understand why your "why" questions are unscientific and pseudo philosophical.
Second important point. You are confusing different mind properties of the brain and that is an error. Memory, cognition, perception, pattern recognition etc are all properties that "feed" content in our conscious states...which is a mind property on its own.
Those are basic distinctions in Cognitive Science and I find it weird that people who like to talk about the mind don't know them!

-"The mentioned properties can only become manifested on the basis of information obtained by the senses, i.e. the mentioned properties of consciousness follow the origin of the senses. The scope of the quest can therefore be reduced to explaining the origin of the senses.
"

-Again you are ignoring basic knowledge. The mentioned properties are gained through previous experiences with our environment and our organism(emotions). Memory, cognition, perception, pattern recognition are build by our experiences day by day from our childhood to this day.
They are stored in different areas of the brain and when our Frontal lateral thalamus is aroused by a stimuli(environmental,emerging thought) those different areas come online(network connection) and feed that information to the system, producing our conscious content. Our senses are the tool by which we gather information, inform the brain patterns in our memory, cognition etc and provide our brain the narrative needed for the new stimuli to be processed.
This is why babies don't have "data" to speak, talk , understand, compare etc their environment.
The brain need to be trained by our senses in order to make senses of the world we experience.

-"The origin of the senses is nessesarily valuing because one is to assume a preceding position of 'lack of reason'. if it were to be otherwise, there would be nothing to be sensed. The scope of the quest can therefor be reduced to explaining the origin of valuing."

-It is obvious that you don't know anything about the role of the senses in our brain processes.

-"As is evident from the mentioned simple logical truth¹, what precedes valuing cannot be value and one is therefor required to look outside the scope of the individual for the origin of valuing."

-Value can not be assumed....it needs to be demonstrated, period.

-"Based on this logic the origin of consciousness must lay outside the scope of the individual."

-Well "this logic" is based on a huge argument from Ambiguity fallacy. Just because our senses feeds info about "the outside" to our brains , that doesn't mean the mechanism that is aware of that info is outside the brain.lol

-"The brain and human body may merely be an instrument."

-Sure the body provides the sensory system, but loosing a leg , an arm or a pelvis doesn't keep you from being conscious of your body, your ghost limbs and the environment.....loosing your head is a different story though. The property of being conscious is the product of brain function.
Why is this fact ignored when you try to reason this through??????

There are new upcoming consciousness theories named 'filter' or 'reducing valve' theory of mind

Those are not theories...those are pseudo philosophical ideologies and they are not new....
First of all they are in direct conflict with our Current Scientific Paradigm.
AGAIN as I wrote in a previous post, we no longer assume advanced properties being loose in Nature. We no more accept magical substances like Phlogiston , Miasma,Panacea,Orgone Energy ,Gods as a useful, meaningful, truthful or instrumentally valuable way to understand the world.

I get it, it is convenient to make up a magical invisible entity that happens to share the same properties with the phenomenon in question, but that is not philosophy or science for centuries now.
For more than 500 years we have being debunking lazy "answers" of magical substances being the origins of "puzzling" properties.
We constantly verify the following description. Advanced properties emerge from complex structures and functions of matter. We don't observe advance properties in simple forms of matter or independent of it. Only kinetic properties can be observed in the fundamental scale of matter.
Claiming to be possible, without evidence , that is a supernatural claim, thus pseudo philosophical.

As Nobelist Frank Wilczek points out. A "field" of consciousness would be very easy to be detected, since its manifestation demands some kind of interaction with the particles of the brain. The only interaction we observe are the data delivered to our different brain areas by sensory system.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 10:11 pm

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

-Don't blame me for that. You literally stated "The brain unarguably amplifies and shapes consciousness, but does it generate it?" You are saying that the brain "amplifies and shapes IT" so there is some IT"thing" there that can be generated somewhere and amplified and shaped!!!! What is that 'iT" and how do you know that amplification and shaping is executed in the brain?
Science shows us that that "thing" is a function of the brain. What is your evidence on that "thing" being something else other than brain function?
I am using the word "thing" because you haven't provided details about the ontology of the process you are promoting.
To contrast your approach with the scientific one, I will share this simple discussion on a recent show where a scientist explains the brain process responsible for the conversion of visual inputs.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC71yNnhMq4
The terms used are absolute, clear and they refer to actual entities and processes that we can point at..We can not say about your "it" or Atlas "filters".

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

-So using the most current and credible source for epistemology.......creates me a problem to understand your post? Well,that tells more things about your post than my understanding sir!

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

-Who said anything about the 'stomach' or ' metabolism'????? The words were "Digestive Track" and "Digestion" and I seriously hope you understand their differences. The term Digestive track limits the conversation to a specific type of food assimilation and Digestion precedes metabolism as a processes. So pls pay attention to the words used so that we can have a meaningful conversation.

Further, the claim is simply wrong, an attempt to define the problem away.

-Of course not. It is designed to expose some serious Special Pleading from your part.

Consciousness is not defined as the property of brains, it is defined in broader terms of wakefulness, awareness and a sense of being.

-You are confused. In any serious Academic Course, Consciousness is defined as a property of the brain(mind property) and so are the other two you mentioned. It is also defined as a type of behavior.
To be more precise. Awakeness and Unconscious Self Awareness are consider as the two most important mind properties. Consciousness is the third one and the degree of wakefulness and awareness define the quality of our conscious state.
This is basic stuff in Cognitive Science.

Likewise the definition of digestion is not "a property of the stomach".

-What's up with you and the stomach mate?? Were you hungry when you're composing this post? lol just kidding. Again....digestive track.

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.

-Argument from ignorance fallacy. Irrelevant. Scientific evidence identify specific part of the brain as Necessary and Sufficient to explain and enable conscious brain states. When and if we come up with evidence about our toe being necessary for our cognition, then would be the time to can talk about it...not now.

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. .

-Using Objective evidence produced by a Systematic Methodology for our conclusions is not an "assumption", sorry.
Your statement "there may be broader systemic processes at play" is a vague dishonest back track. Nobody denies the system "brain and body(sensory system)" The body provided tones of data and stimuli and the brain process them. THE PROBLEM rises with your claim that our ability to consciously direct our attention to the stimuli provided by that "broader systemic processes" is not realized by the brain alone. Do you really think that the filtering of the urine is done by the kidneys the heart our left ear?
Do you think that the prostate has a role in digestion? There is a certain and obvious specialization in biological systems. The sensory system carries stimuli, the brain consciously attends them whether they are credible or not. Those are our current facts.
Are you familiar with the science and why we KNOW which part of the brain ignites our conscious states and how the rest of our brains enrich them?

You will obviously not be able to provide references that prove that consciousness is generated in the brain.

Have you read any of my posts, did you click on any of the links I provided? The references are there verifying the Necessary and Sufficient role of the brain for our conscious states.
Unfortunately I can not PROVE that the electromagnetic cohesion of molecules ,NOT a "ghost cup" ,is the absolute responsible mechanism for the shape of the liquid in that cup...and in the same way I can not prove that the brain, not an invisible source you suggest, is the ultimate causal mechanism of consciousness.
This is the problem with pseudo philosophy. Anyone can suggest an additional invisible ontology and ask for absolute proof, ignoring the meaning and value of Objective empirical evidence. This is why we still have ideas like gods guiding evolution, or the brain being a magical filter for consciousness(whatever consciousness means in that context!!).

People are unable to distinquish absolute concepts from how the real world works. "Proof" is an absolute mathematical term which doesn't apply in real life, because as I said, anyone can suggest an UNFALSIFAIBLE additional invisible "ontological level" rendering any proof impossible.
Again that is nothing more than a huge Argument from Ignorance masquerading as skepticism.

Such a proof would be big news, akin to the first image of a black hole.

-In science we have big news on the role of the brain in our conscious states every year. The proof you are talking about is for disproving a fabricated Universal Negative not to prove the Necessary and Sufficient role of the brain in conscious states. That has already been established. Sorry, we can not disprove an orbiting teapot and we can not disprove an invisible source of consciousness. This is why Demarcation/Falsifiability is an important rule of logic that you obviously ignore.
After all the burden of proof is on the side making the claim...so shifting the goalpost is one more fallacy in your list of arguments.

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.

-Sure......and????? what is the point in that statement? The brain is a complex organ and as our technology advances new observations and facts will help us correct our previous descriptions.
IT's one thing to inform the description of the responsible brain mechanism based on evidence and an other to suggest invisible mechanisms without any! Plus, the press taking details out of context is not a new thing.

No one yet knows how a sense of being is generated.
-Argument from ignorance...again? Well Its more of from personal incredulity since the literature on how unconscious Self awareness emerges is long (but it is irrelevant to the conscious realization of our self awareness)
https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=sense+of+self

If you don't believe that the "hard problem" exists, then you should state why.

-Well the Philosophical "hard problem" has nothing to do with "HOW a sense of being is generated". By referring to the "sense of being" then you are talking about the unconscious sense of Self. That is a different problem and has nothing to do with consciousness(check the link about). Our conscious states have the ability to focus on that sense and realize that....we are existing. Again you are mixing different mind properties.
The Hard problem of consciousness is a "why" epistemically useless question.

Chalmers outlined the problem through these "why" questions : " 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? "
Since then many scientists have pointed out that those are useless questions since they introduce meaning and teleology in nature, when it shouldn't be an assumed an intrinsic feature of a non agent Plus our how questions are far more hard and useful...but with the potential of having an OBJECTIVE ANSWER.

arjand wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:26 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 10:11 pm 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.

Do you believe that philosophy will be able to provide an answer? If so, do you have a suggestion for potential valid theories?

I don't know, Arjand. There's many people wrestling with these riddles in different ways. It's one of many such mysteries of nature.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 6:17 am

arjand wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:26 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 10:11 pm 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.

Do you believe that philosophy will be able to provide an answer? If so, do you have a suggestion for potential valid theories?

I don't know, Arjand. There's many people wrestling with these riddles in different ways. It's one of many such mysteries of nature.

Philosophy needs data in order to work upon them and produce answers. Data are provided by science. Without science no Philosophy can not be meaningful. No meaningful frameworks no real philosophy.

Nick, so a process cannot be referred to as "it"? Noted.

Making comparisons between the functions and processes of the digestive and nervous systems is not allowed? Also noted.

You seem keen to paint me as a practitioner of pseudo-science, with many implied ad homs. You are wrong yet again. I have long been a science enthusiast, having worked in scientific institutions, and been lucky enough to have had a number of scientist, engineering and curator friends over the years.

So I recognise science, and your approach to this debate is less scientific than it is emotional and political. Many unchecked assertions and accusations, fighting the good fight against heretics of the orthodoxy. You seem keen to paint me as male. Great to see that you've been paying attention. Mate.

Presenting links to material that refers to the on/off switches of consciousness as generators of consciousness is not convincing.

Life started as metabolisms. Nervous systems emerged to protect metabolisms. Given the history, it's hardly outrageous to wonder if there is a fundamental sense of being that may stem from the digestive system, which might then be refined into what we think of as awareness by the nervous system.

If scientists cannot work out how to create consciousness, then they have more to learn to truly understand it. Manipulation is not generation. You think it's a false expectation, to be able to create, but it is fundamental. For instance, if we want to explore the Planck scale, we know how to do it. Build a collider the size of the solar system. The impediment is not conceptual, it's logistical. By contrast, we only have speculative and unproven tools to use to even start a project to construct consciousness, let alone do it.

Whatever, I'm not interested in debating you. Too much attitude. Yuk! Besides, nobody wants to read long, broken-up posts full of angry snippets and deliberate misunderstandings. It's forum pollution.

arjand wrote: ↑June 1st, 2021, 7:48 pm

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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10%: ##

@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.

My comment wasn't anything about consciousness. I was just saying that there are no living humans without brains. Brains regulate a bunch of different autonomic functions, including breathing, heart rate, etc. A human couldn't survive without a brain.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 7:03 am

Nick, so a process cannot be referred to as "it"? Noted.
-That was not the point I made. A process can mean anything. The problem with your claim is that you imply that the belief in an invisible process of any kind of quality is reasonable. You didn't define the ontology of that process.

Making comparisons between the functions and processes of the digestive and nervous systems is not allowed? Also noted.

-That was never the comparison. Why are you coming up with this hurt puppy type of response.
I just pointed out that We don't assume imaginary invisible processes outside the digestive track responsible for Digestion, so what is the justification to do that with a brain state?

You seem keen to paint me as a practitioner of pseudo-science, with many implied ad homs. You are wrong yet again. I have long been a science enthusiast, having worked in scientific institutions, and been lucky enough to have had a number of scientist, engineering and curator friends over the years.

-The problem is not with what you practice but with how you reason. Most of your objection about our current scientific understanding of the phenomenon is based on logical fallacies and I am pointing them out to them.

So I recognise science, and your approach to this debate is less scientific than it is emotional and political.

-Pls Focus on the actual points made, not how to avoid embarrassment. Asking people to prove that an invisible ontology isn't hiding behind an observable and quantifiable causal mechanism(of our conscious states) is a fallacy. This is your main argument and it is fallacious.

Many unchecked assertions and accusations, fighting the good fight against heretics of the orthodoxy. You seem keen to paint me as male. Great to see that you've been paying attention. Mate.

-This is sophistry. If it wasn't you would be addressing my points one by one. But this is not what magical thinkers do. Even when we point out to them why their arguments are from Ignorance or special pleading or begging the question they enjoy making up personal accusation about a secret agenda for the orthodoxy of.....who knows what. THose statement show that you don't have a clue what science is or how it works.
Again you don't have evidence about an invisible process that doesn't include the brain as the only player so the burden is on you.
Science makes testable hypotheses and expect a specific area of the brain, if the theoretical framework is correct, to display specific activity when relevant behavior or thoughts are observe. This is what we verify again and again. This is evidence for the Necessary and Sufficient role of the brain on this behavior.

Presenting links to material that refers to the on/off switches of consciousness as generators of consciousness is not convincing.

Then you should read the whole paper the methodology and the references on why a specific part of a brain is hold responsible for our consious states....don't just stop reading to the on/off switch term.
It is funny that you(atlas) haven't addressed a single point made....sad for a philosophical discussion.

Life started as metabolisms. Nervous systems emerged to protect metabolisms. Given the history, it's hardly outrageous to wonder if there is a fundamental sense of being that may stem from the digestive system, which might then be refined into what we think of as awareness by the nervous system.

-Again your are talking about the property of Unconscious Self Awareness. If you had read my posts you would know that science understand that sense as a really basic one.....AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH the mechanism that enables our CONSCIOUS STATES. We can reflect on that unconscious sense with our conscious states and create a narrative (subjective experience).

If scientists cannot work out how to create consciousness, then they have more to learn to truly understand it. Manipulation is not generation. You think it's a false expectation, to be able to create, but it is fundamental. For instance, if we want to explore the Planck scale, we know how to do it. Build a collider the size of the solar system. The impediment is not conceptual, it's logistical. By contrast, we only have speculative and unproven tools to use to even start a project to construct consciousness, let alone do it.

-You keep making the same argument from ignorance fallacy. First of all you don't know all the science, what we understand and what we don't understand about the phenomenon. Second we know how to create gold but we can not due to energetic limitations....does it mean that we don't understand the atom of goal. That is a irrelevant criterion you are proposing. Who told you that we can generate "consciousness".
Creating mini brains in lad with detectable brain function...what do you call that?

Whatever, I'm not interested in debating you. Too much attitude. Yuk! Besides, nobody wants to read long, broken-up posts full of angry snippets and deliberate misunderstandings. It's forum pollution.

The problem is not "your interest" but your epistemic foundations on the subject.
Your interest appears to be the promotion of a death denying ideology based on a huge argument from ignorance fallacy. This is my opinion based on a common pattern

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 5:15 am We can not say about ... Atlas "filters".

How do you even come up with these things? I never said or implied anything about some "filters".

Atla wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:25 pm

NickGaspar wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 5:15 am We can not say about ... Atlas "filters".

How do you even come up with these things? I never said or implied anything about some "filters".

I am really sorry. I thought you wrote: "There are new upcoming consciousness theories named 'filter' or 'reducing valve' theory of mind
(2019) Consciousness is a property of the Universe that is filtered by the brain".
But if you did and it's just a problem with the Ctrl+C CTRL+P of my keyboard....I am terrible sorry.

arjand wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:24 am(2019) Consciousness is a property of the Universe that is filtered by the brain
According to the decades-long research of Dr. Peter Fenwick (Cambridge, UK), a highly regarded neuropsychologist who has been studying the human brain, consciousness, and the phenomenon of near death experience (NDE) for 50 years consciousness cannot be an emergent property of the brain and its metabolism. Fenwick believes that consciousness actually exists independently and outside of the brain. In Fenwick’s view, the brain does not create or produce consciousness; rather, it filters it.

Does Consciousness Exist Outside of the Brain?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/bl ... -the-brain

(2020) The Filter Theory of the Mind-Brain Connection
The filter model sees consciousness as outside the physical body and brain. The filter, or reducing valve, theory of the mind-brain relationship may be gaining ground in part because of the growing interest in forms of universal consciousness emerging from both physics and neuroscience. The seriousness with which this old idea is being treated by a wide range of scientists suggests that the top-down or bottom-up question of mind and brain is far from settled.
https://medium.com/top-down-or-bottom-u ... 48d7184b24

What is promoted here is cosmopsychism, the doctrine that the cosmos (universe/world) as a whole is a unitary subject or substrate of mental/experiential states.

So you want it one by one?


1. Can a process be referred to as "it"? (FFS)

SB: Nick, so a process cannot be referred to as "it"? Noted.

NG: That was not the point I made.

SB: A fib. Tsk tsk. Evidence below:

NickGaspar earlier wrote:You literally stated "The brain unarguably amplifies and shapes consciousness, but does it generate it?" You are saying that the brain "amplifies and shapes IT" so there is some IT"thing" there that can be generated somewhere and amplified and shaped!!!!

2. The Purported Relevance of Invisibility

NG: A process can mean anything. The problem with your claim is that you imply that the belief in an invisible process of any kind of quality is reasonable. You didn't define the ontology of that process.

SB: We know of many things that are invisible. Visibility is a red herring.


3. Nervous and digestive systems

SB: Making comparisons between the functions and processes of the digestive and nervous systems is not allowed? Also noted.

NG: That was never the comparison. Why are you coming up with this hurt puppy type of response.
I just pointed out that We don't assume imaginary invisible processes outside the digestive track responsible for Digestion, so what is the justification to do that with a brain state?

SB. If you are going to rely on lying in lieu of sensible discussion, maybe you should make it harder to refute?

SyBorg wrote:The claim [that consciousness is a property of the brain] 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

NickGaspar in reply wrote:Who said anything about the 'stomach' or ' metabolism'????? The words were "Digestive Track" and "Digestion" and I seriously hope you understand their differences. The term Digestive track ...

The term is "digestive tract" and it is a fair analogy.


4. The Invisible Man

NG: Asking people to prove that an invisible ontology isn't hiding behind an observable and quantifiable causal mechanism(of our conscious states) is a fallacy. This is your main argument and it is fallacious.

SB: Really? My main argument is that those who claim certainty about something so extraordinary need to produce extraordinary evidence.

Certainty requires knowing, not making excuses because processes are "invisible". Visibility is a red herring *click*. It's not as though we are unable to probe phenomena that lies outside of the visible light spectrum.


5. Does qualia matter?

NG: [ad hominem attacks removed] Science makes testable hypotheses and expect a specific area of the brain, if the theoretical framework is correct, to display specific activity when relevant behavior or thoughts are observe. This is what we verify again and again. This is evidence for the Necessary and Sufficient role of the brain on this behavior.

SB: Sad to see someone on this forum, whose approach is more political than unscientific, making grand claims about what science is.

And again, you ignore the underlying sense of being - qualia - and digress to behaviours and processing.

You forget that many organisms are conscious, not just humans. That human consciousness is an outlier, not a standard model for consciousness. Some organisms have extremely simple consciousness, so simple that no one knows if they experience their lives or not. There is a grey area, far from the sophistication of human mentality, that lies on the border of consciousness and unconsciousness. A brain is required for a level of consciousness that humans consider to be worthwhile, but that is not to say for certain that consciousness is entirely absent for animals with simpler sensing and processing organs.


6. Are on/off switches the same as generators?

SB: Presenting links to material that refers to the on/off switches of consciousness as generators of consciousness is not convincing.

NG: Then you should read the whole paper the methodology and the references on why a specific part of a brain is hold responsible for our consious states....don't just stop reading to the on/off switch term.

SB: That is proof to you? Noted. Funny how people lower the bar for proof when it suits their politics.



7. Human consciousness is not the norm in nature

SB: Life started as metabolisms. Nervous systems emerged to protect metabolisms. Given the history, it's hardly outrageous to wonder if there is a fundamental sense of being that may stem from the digestive system, which might then be refined into what we think of as awareness by the nervous system.

NG: Again your are talking about the property of Unconscious Self Awareness. If you had read my posts you would know that science understand that sense as a really basic one.....AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH the mechanism that enables our CONSCIOUS STATES. We can reflect on that unconscious sense with our conscious states and create a narrative (subjective experience).

SB: Not sure how many times I have said this on the forum (and then some feisty types tell me I'd dodging when I tire of the repitition) ...

Normal human consciousness is not an appropriate model to use when assessing the phenomenon of consciousness generally. It is not just an an outlier, but its nature lies significantly outside of the norm. It's easy to assume that an organism is a "philosophical zombie" if there is no apparent repercussions for objectifying them. That is the same mistake humans have made from the start - assuming lack of internality in others.

Some may think that all of the work here is done, that the hard problem of consciousness has been cracked, that there are only details to iron out. I question this. Newton's laws were thought to be unimpeachable for centuries, until Einstein. Einstein's laws were considered fact until quantum mechanics.

Consciousness studies are a much newer field than classical physics, and I very much doubt that current research is beyond the "Newton stage". It's only an opinion, but one that is grounded in history - and the fact that neuroscientists themselves say that there is much still that is not understood.


8. Creating a living, feeling being in a laboratory?

SB: If scientists cannot work out how to create consciousness, then they have more to learn to truly understand it. Manipulation is not generation. You think it's a false expectation, to be able to create, but it is fundamental. For instance, if we want to explore the Planck scale, we know how to do it. Build a collider the size of the solar system. The impediment is not conceptual, it's logistical. By contrast, we only have speculative and unproven tools to use to even start a project to construct consciousness, let alone do it.

NG: You keep making the same argument from ignorance fallacy. First of all you don't know all the science, what we understand and what we don't understand about the phenomenon. Second we know how to create gold but we can not due to energetic limitations....does it mean that we don't understand the atom of goal. That is a irrelevant criterion you are proposing. Who told you that we can generate "consciousness".
Creating mini brains in lad with detectable brain function...what do you call that?

SB: Spoken like a true panpsychist, blindly believing that "mini brains" being grown (not created) in laboratories enjoy inner experiences. Ironic.

This isn't about manipulation, but creation. As in IIT - the ability to create a system that experiences. It need not be a human brain (did I tell you that human consciousness is an outlier?). How about building a brain with the sophistication of, say, a microscopic nematode, and measuring its qualia? Even that is too hard - because we still have much to learn.


9. Death and endings

SB. Whatever, I'm not interested in debating you. Too much attitude. Yuk! Besides, nobody wants to read long, broken-up posts full of angry snippets and deliberate misunderstandings. It's forum pollution.

NG: The problem is not "your interest" but your epistemic foundations on the subject.
Your interest appears to be the promotion of a death denying ideology based on a huge argument from ignorance fallacy. This is my opinion based on a common pattern

SB: "Death denying"? So much straw, so little time. Odd how you make crap up about me out of the blue.

Whatever, I hope you are now satisfied with individual responses. So, naw cowboy, ah ain't runnin' cos ah'm scaired o' yer. I am leaving you to it because I don't like your aggressive approach to debate, nor going through the same old failed and clichéd arguments. It's boring.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 9:25 pm So you want it one by one?


1. Can a process be referred to as "it"? (FFS)

SB: Nick, so a process cannot be referred to as "it"? Noted.

NG: That was not the point I made.

SB: A fib. Tsk tsk. Evidence below:

NickGaspar earlier wrote:You literally stated "The brain unarguably amplifies and shapes consciousness, but does it generate it?" You are saying that the brain "amplifies and shapes IT" so there is some IT"thing" there that can be generated somewhere and amplified and shaped!!!!

2. The Purported Relevance of Invisibility

NG: A process can mean anything. The problem with your claim is that you imply that the belief in an invisible process of any kind of quality is reasonable. You didn't define the ontology of that process.

SB: We know of many things that are invisible. Visibility is a red herring.


3. Nervous and digestive systems

SB: Making comparisons between the functions and processes of the digestive and nervous systems is not allowed? Also noted.

NG: That was never the comparison. Why are you coming up with this hurt puppy type of response.
I just pointed out that We don't assume imaginary invisible processes outside the digestive track responsible for Digestion, so what is the justification to do that with a brain state?

SB. If you are going to rely on lying in lieu of sensible discussion, maybe you should make it harder to refute?

SyBorg wrote:The claim [that consciousness is a property of the brain] 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

NickGaspar in reply wrote:Who said anything about the 'stomach' or ' metabolism'????? The words were "Digestive Track" and "Digestion" and I seriously hope you understand their differences. The term Digestive track ...

The term is "digestive tract" and it is a fair analogy.


4. The Invisible Man

NG: Asking people to prove that an invisible ontology isn't hiding behind an observable and quantifiable causal mechanism(of our conscious states) is a fallacy. This is your main argument and it is fallacious.

SB: Really? My main argument is that those who claim certainty about something so extraordinary need to produce extraordinary evidence.

Certainty requires knowing, not making excuses because processes are "invisible". Visibility is a red herring *click*. It's not as though we are unable to probe phenomena that lies outside of the visible light spectrum.


5. Does qualia matter?

NG: [ad hominem attacks removed] Science makes testable hypotheses and expect a specific area of the brain, if the theoretical framework is correct, to display specific activity when relevant behavior or thoughts are observe. This is what we verify again and again. This is evidence for the Necessary and Sufficient role of the brain on this behavior.

SB: Sad to see someone on this forum, whose approach is more political than unscientific, making grand claims about what science is.

And again, you ignore the underlying sense of being - qualia - and digress to behaviours and processing.

You forget that many organisms are conscious, not just humans. That human consciousness is an outlier, not a standard model for consciousness. Some organisms have extremely simple consciousness, so simple that no one knows if they experience their lives or not. There is a grey area, far from the sophistication of human mentality, that lies on the border of consciousness and unconsciousness. A brain is required for a level of consciousness that humans consider to be worthwhile, but that is not to say for certain that consciousness is entirely absent for animals with simpler sensing and processing organs.


6. Are on/off switches the same as generators?

SB: Presenting links to material that refers to the on/off switches of consciousness as generators of consciousness is not convincing.

NG: Then you should read the whole paper the methodology and the references on why a specific part of a brain is hold responsible for our consious states....don't just stop reading to the on/off switch term.

SB: That is proof to you? Noted. Funny how people lower the bar for proof when it suits their politics.



7. Human consciousness is not the norm in nature

SB: Life started as metabolisms. Nervous systems emerged to protect metabolisms. Given the history, it's hardly outrageous to wonder if there is a fundamental sense of being that may stem from the digestive system, which might then be refined into what we think of as awareness by the nervous system.

NG: Again your are talking about the property of Unconscious Self Awareness. If you had read my posts you would know that science understand that sense as a really basic one.....AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH the mechanism that enables our CONSCIOUS STATES. We can reflect on that unconscious sense with our conscious states and create a narrative (subjective experience).

SB: Not sure how many times I have said this on the forum (and then some feisty types tell me I'd dodging when I tire of the repitition) ...

Normal human consciousness is not an appropriate model to use when assessing the phenomenon of consciousness generally. It is not just an an outlier, but its nature lies significantly outside of the norm. It's easy to assume that an organism is a "philosophical zombie" if there is no apparent repercussions for objectifying them. That is the same mistake humans have made from the start - assuming lack of internality in others.

Some may think that all of the work here is done, that the hard problem of consciousness has been cracked, that there are only details to iron out. I question this. Newton's laws were thought to be unimpeachable for centuries, until Einstein. Einstein's laws were considered fact until quantum mechanics.

Consciousness studies are a much newer field than classical physics, and I very much doubt that current research is beyond the "Newton stage". It's only an opinion, but one that is grounded in history - and the fact that neuroscientists themselves say that there is much still that is not understood.


8. Creating a living, feeling being in a laboratory?

SB: If scientists cannot work out how to create consciousness, then they have more to learn to truly understand it. Manipulation is not generation. You think it's a false expectation, to be able to create, but it is fundamental. For instance, if we want to explore the Planck scale, we know how to do it. Build a collider the size of the solar system. The impediment is not conceptual, it's logistical. By contrast, we only have speculative and unproven tools to use to even start a project to construct consciousness, let alone do it.

NG: You keep making the same argument from ignorance fallacy. First of all you don't know all the science, what we understand and what we don't understand about the phenomenon. Second we know how to create gold but we can not due to energetic limitations....does it mean that we don't understand the atom of goal. That is a irrelevant criterion you are proposing. Who told you that we can generate "consciousness".
Creating mini brains in lad with detectable brain function...what do you call that?

SB: Spoken like a true panpsychist, blindly believing that "mini brains" being grown (not created) in laboratories enjoy inner experiences. Ironic.

This isn't about manipulation, but creation. As in IIT - the ability to create a system that experiences. It need not be a human brain (did I tell you that human consciousness is an outlier?). How about building a brain with the sophistication of, say, a microscopic nematode, and measuring its qualia? Even that is too hard - because we still have much to learn.


9. Death and endings

SB. Whatever, I'm not interested in debating you. Too much attitude. Yuk! Besides, nobody wants to read long, broken-up posts full of angry snippets and deliberate misunderstandings. It's forum pollution.

NG: The problem is not "your interest" but your epistemic foundations on the subject.
Your interest appears to be the promotion of a death denying ideology based on a huge argument from ignorance fallacy. This is my opinion based on a common pattern

SB: "Death denying"? So much straw, so little time. Odd how you make crap up about me out of the blue.

Whatever, I hope you are now satisfied with individual responses. So, naw cowboy, ah ain't runnin' cos ah'm scaired o' yer. I am leaving you to it because I don't like your aggressive approach to debate, nor going through the same old failed and clichéd arguments. It's boring.

I will ignore all the dishonest tap dancing and straw men arguments in your sad reply...but this??? :
"NG: That was not the point I made.
SB: A fib. Tsk tsk. Evidence below:"
Seriously now......you chose to attack an opening remark? really?lol...
Sad man. Really sad.