Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Sriram on June 13, 2020, 11:03:36 AM
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Hi everyone,
A nice short video about Consciousness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLE4YAOUqPE&t=135s
Cheers.
Sriram
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A nice short video about Consciousness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLE4YAOUqPE&t=135s
Just wondering if you watched it all. At about 4:04 (>>here<< (https://youtu.be/qLE4YAOUqPE?t=244)) he asks the very reasonable question:
But I think I’m getting way too excited about a completely speculative possibility. Practically, we have to ask, does the universe need to be conscious in order to arrive at its present state. In other words, does what we see around us need a consciousness to direct the events that lead up to what we observe, that lead to life?
Spoiler alert! The answer is "no".
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Hi everyone,
A nice short video about Consciousness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLE4YAOUqPE&t=135s
Cheers.
Sriram
Watched your video. All he seems to do is to link science to purely speculative ideas for no good reason and with a total lack of evidence, seemingly working on the principle that if we don't know a great deal about something(e.g. black holes/origin of the universe/fine tuning/dark matter and energy) then we have the opportunity to use any analogies we wish suggest vague and superficial explanations.
Not impressed at all, especially as it seems one of his goals seems to be to make money out of his videos.
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Just wondering if you watched it all. At about 4:04 (>>here<< (https://youtu.be/qLE4YAOUqPE?t=244)) he asks the very reasonable question:
But I think I’m getting way too excited about a completely speculative possibility. Practically, we have to ask, does the universe need to be conscious in order to arrive at its present state. In other words, does what we see around us need a consciousness to direct the events that lead up to what we observe, that lead to life?
Spoiler alert! The answer is "no".
He however goes on to talk of 'fine tuning', formation of complex molecules leading to humans etc...(from 6.23 onwards).
He ends by listing three possibilities.....God, Universal Consciousness or many worlds materialism.
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He however goes on to talk of 'fine tuning', formation of complex molecules leading to humans etc...(from 6.23 onwards).
He ends by listing three possibilities.....God, Universal Consciousness or many worlds materialism.
Well, he reels off what various groups might think and rather oddly lumps all "materialists" into believing in a multiverse. The problem is that we're into the totally unknown here. Without a tested "theory of everything" we don't even know if there was any flexibility at all in the constants of nature. There are also various multiverse ideas that range from pure speculation to fairly reasonable extrapolations of what is known.
We can all make up speculations that suit what we would like to be true but the rational answer is "we don't know".
The whole video seems to be a mishmash of speculations. I've actually watched some of his stuff that is a bit more grounded, although even then he sometimes isn't entirely accurate or doesn't point out where opinions differ.
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Yes..I agree that 'we don't know'.
But the idea of a God (not a biblical God) or Universal Consciousness is no longer just a part of mythology or religious belief, to be casually laughed away.
These ideas can be a part of serious scientific speculation and conjecture. That itself IMO is a major step forward in bridging the gulf between a small minority of science enthusiasts and a vast majority of people who thing there is an Intelligence at work behind creation.
Cheers.
Sriram
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Yes..I agree that 'we don't know'.
But the idea of a God (not a biblical God) or Universal Consciousness is no longer just a part of mythology or religious belief, to be casually laughed away.
These ideas can be a part of serious scientific speculation and conjecture.
There have been endless speculations about consciousness and, apart from the hard neuroscience, they are all basically guesswork.
Even scientists I admire for other reasons have come up with some rather strange speculations. Take Roger Penrose (who's published joint papers with Stephen Hawking), for example, who basically tried to turn consciousness causes (wave function) collapse on its head and suggested that collapse causes consciousness and hence introduced a kind of panpsychism. His book, The Emperor's New Mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind) has a great introduction to a lot of scientific concepts (highly recommended for that at least, but not for the maths-phobic). He tried to argue that minds were not computable, using Gödel's incompleteness theorem, but I found it ultimately unconvincing (as did most of his peers), and the leap to QM was obviously a guess (as many of his critics pointed out, he seemed to have seen two mysteries and just assumed a link).
The speculations in the video (black holes linked together) seemed to have no basis at all.
A guess is a guess, and we do need people who come up with bold conjectures, but they are only as convincing as the arguments used to support them and they can't become scientific hypotheses until they make testable predictions (at least in principle).
The big problem with a universal consciousness or some "god-like" being is the total lack of evidence of any conscious involvement (as the video pointed out) in how the universe has developed. Together with the fact that it doesn't really explain the universe or the "fine tuning" at all, it just moves the "problem" elsewhere.
When it actually comes down to it the only evidence we have of consciousness is when it's associated with complex brains, which is why I find the speculations of Daniel Dennett (Consciousness Explained, From Bacteria to Bach and Back), Douglas Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach, I Am a Strange Loop), and possibly, from what I've read to date, Integrated Information Theory, to be more plausible.
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There have been endless speculations about consciousness and, apart from the hard neuroscience, they are all basically guesswork.
Even scientists I admire for other reasons have come up with some rather strange speculations. Take Roger Penrose (who's published joint papers with Stephen Hawking), for example, who basically tried to turn consciousness causes (wave function) collapse on its head and suggested that collapse causes consciousness and hence introduced a kind of panpsychism. His book, The Emperor's New Mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind) has a great introduction to a lot of scientific concepts (highly recommended for that at least, but not for the maths-phobic). He tried to argue that minds were not computable, using Gödel's incompleteness theorem, but I found it ultimately unconvincing (as did most of his peers), and the leap to QM was obviously a guess (as many of his critics pointed out, he seemed to have seen two mysteries and just assumed a link).
The speculations in the video (black holes linked together) seemed to have no basis at all.
A guess is a guess, and we do need people who come up with bold conjectures, but they are only as convincing as the arguments used to support them and they can't become scientific hypotheses until they make testable predictions (at least in principle).
The big problem with a universal consciousness or some "god-like" being is the total lack of evidence of any conscious involvement (as the video pointed out) in how the universe has developed. Together with the fact that it doesn't really explain the universe or the "fine tuning" at all, it just moves the "problem" elsewhere.
When it actually comes down to it the only evidence we have of consciousness is when it's associated with complex brains, which is why I find the speculations of Daniel Dennett (Consciousness Explained, From Bacteria to Bach and Back), Douglas Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach, I Am a Strange Loop), and possibly, from what I've read to date, Integrated Information Theory, to be more plausible.
Evidence of consciousness. Doesn't Dennett eliminate consciousness as illusory?
If so how can you both hold that consciousness is illusory AND evidenced only in complex brains?
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Evidence of consciousness. Doesn't Dennett eliminate consciousness as illusory?
If so how can you both hold that consciousness is illusory AND evidenced only in complex brains?
Do you have evidence of it being anywhere other than it emanating from complex brains?
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Evidence of consciousness. Doesn't Dennett eliminate consciousness as illusory?
Not really, no. He argues that many aspects of it are not at all how they appear from the "inside". There's a TED talk by him called The Illusion of Consciousness (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_the_illusion_of_consciousness/transcript?language=en#t-63376), complete with a transcript, in which he doesn't use the word illusion once. It's an eye-catching title but not really what he's getting at exactly. Here's an extract from where he's summing up:-
"What I wanted to show you is that scientists, using their from-the-outside, third-person methods, can tell you things about your own consciousness that you would never dream of, and that, in fact, you're not the authority on your own consciousness that you think you are. And we're really making a lot of progress on coming up with a theory of mind."
In many of his writings, he talks about why it's "like anything" to be a human, in other words, why we have a conscious experience. He has described the contents of consciousness as being a "user illusion", rather like a computer desktop, with lots of icons that represent things that are actually a great deal more complicated and not like the icons at all.
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Do you have evidence of it being anywhere other than it emanating from complex brains?
What is the evidence that it does?
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Not really, no. He argues that many aspects of it are not at all how they appear from the "inside". There's a TED talk by him called The Illusion of Consciousness (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_the_illusion_of_consciousness/transcript?language=en#t-63376), complete with a transcript, in which he doesn't use the word illusion once. It's an eye-catching title but not really what he's getting at exactly. Here's an extract from where he's summing up:-
"What I wanted to show you is that scientists, using their from-the-outside, third-person methods, can tell you things about your own consciousness that you would never dream of, and that, in fact, you're not the authority on your own consciousness that you think you are. And we're really making a lot of progress on coming up with a theory of mind."
In many of his writings, he talks about why it's "like anything" to be a human, in other words, why we have a conscious experience. He has described the contents of consciousness as being a "user illusion", rather like a computer desktop, with lots of icons that represent things that are actually a great deal more complicated and not like the icons at all.
So let's get this straight.
He gives a talk called The illusion of consciousness
But he doesn't use the word illusion in it.
And so that makes me wrong about Dennett saying consciousness is an illusion.
Then he talks of User illusion.
So how can I be wrong and right about Dennett? Answers on a postcard.
While everyone antitheist here is patting themselves on how bamboozlingly smart they've been. Who or what is the user that has been illuded?
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What is the evidence that it does?
Where is the evidence that it doesn't?
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Where is the evidence that it doesn't?
Apparently it's an illusion.
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So let's get this straight.
[blah, blah, blah]
I gave you a brief explanation, including a quote from his summing up, which you totally ignored, so I really don't see why I should bother trying to explain further. If you have any smidgen of genuine interest you could watch the talk, which is a great deal shorter and more entertaining than Feser's long-winded nonsense. In fact, there's an even shorter summary here (in which he does describe various aspects as "sort of" an illusion): Daniel Dennett - How are Brains Conscious? (https://youtu.be/CSkfHDdZZ3o) (just over 12 minutes).
And, as I said, there are many ideas here and nobody has a tested theory of consciousness, so we actually don't know. I just explained why I found some speculations more convincing than others. If you're not interested in Dennett's ideas, and want to just dismiss them, then fine.
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What is the evidence that it does?
Well, for starters, if you administer a a general anesthetic it goes away. If brains get damaged, so do conscious minds. This list of such evidence is quite extensive.
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Apparently it's an illusion.
Do you concur with that description?
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Well, for starters, if you administer a a general anesthetic it goes away. If brains get damaged, so do conscious minds. This list of such evidence is quite extensive.
But that is just the conscious mind (wakefulness or sense awareness). We know through somnambulism that the unconscious mind continues to function even when the conscious mind is unaware.
We also know that the unconscious mind which is about 90%, lies below the surface....and has a major role in our decisions and functioning. The conscious mind is only the front end.
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But that is just the conscious mind (wakefulness or sense awareness).
That was the subject I was addressing.
We also know that the unconscious mind which is about 90%, lies below the surface....and has a major role in our decisions and functioning. The conscious mind is only the front end.
Indeed, and one of Dennett's ideas is that the distinction between the two isn't quite as clear cut as it seems, which is why he refers to some aspects of consciousness being a kind of illusion. The link in #14 (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=17511.msg802105#msg802105) says more about it.
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Do you concur with that description?
You and Dennett can't seem to do it even though you floated it and now you are expecting me to agree?
What with? It's an illusion of it's a sort of illusion that isn't quite an illusion?
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Well, for starters, if you administer a a general anesthetic it goes away. If brains get damaged, so do conscious minds. This list of such evidence is quite extensive.
Where does it go?
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Where does it go?
I guess playing word games is easier than addressing the point. ::)
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You and Dennett can't seem to do it even though you floated it and now you are expecting me to agree?
Where have I expected you to agree?
I asked if you did, to which I expected an answer. Well from you I guess, expecting an answer is maybe wishful thinking.
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Where have I expected you to agree?
I asked if you did, to which I expected an answer. Well from you I guess, expecting an answer is maybe wishful thinking.
Sorry I mistook you for NTTS. Many apologies.
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Sorry I mistook you for NTTS. Many apologies.
...no worries, carry on Pike! ;D
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One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.
Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.
We can all believe in our God given spirit of freedom.
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One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.
Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.
We can all believe in our God given spirit of freedom.
The people who wrote the documents making up the Bible had very good imaginations but very little knowledge of the way the body actually works.
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The people who wrote the documents making up the Bible had very good imaginations but very little knowledge of the way the body actually works.
Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?
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Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?
They don't read like the inspiration of any competent god. If a god is behind its construction, it has made a right hash it.
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One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.
Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.
Good to the the Alan Burns fallacy production system hasn't totally broken down. Nice example of an argumentum ad ignorantiam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance).
We can all believe in our God given spirit of freedom.
We can all believe in fairies if we want, at least they aren't self-contradictory, unlike your assertions about what "freedom" means.
Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?
The scriptures are an incoherent mess, with no clear message and multiple contradictions. If they are divinely inspired then either god has serious communication problems, or it's one crazy mixed up deity...
..... um..... er...... ...maybe that makes some sense of the world, come to think of it; god is as mad as a bucket full of spiders. :-\
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Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?
Good grief, I hope not, else we really are fucked. ::)
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Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?
If that were the case then you'd have to accept God the bloodthirsty indiscriminate mass murderer as divinely revealed in many OT scriptures. I think I would drown in the cognitive dissonance of it all.
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One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.
Another thing we can say for certain.
From among the best theological minds, there us no agreement on the true nature of the soul, where it resides, how it connects to our physical bodies, how it makes decisions etc.
Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.
Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility that conciousness is an emergent property of a physical brain, driven by deterministic principles.
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Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?
Can you accept that they might not be?
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The idea of consciousness being an emergent property of brain functions...is what is questioned by the Hard problem of consciousness and IIT.
Tononi writes...
"While identifying the “neural correlates of consciousness” is undoubtedly important, it is hard to see how it could ever lead to a satisfactory explanation of what consciousness is and how it comes about."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
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The idea of consciousness being an emergent property of brain functions...is what is questioned by the Hard problem of consciousness and IIT.
Tononi writes...
"While identifying the “neural correlates of consciousness” is undoubtedly important, it is hard to see how it could ever lead to a satisfactory explanation of what consciousness is and how it comes about."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Consciousness as we experience it, is something synthesised or procured by brains, which implies there must be something more fundamental for it to emerge from, what that something is, is work in progress.
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Consciousness as we experience it, is something synthesised or procured by brains, which implies there must be something more fundamental for it to emerge from, what that something is, is work in progress.
Consciousness is not something that WE experience. It is not external to us. WE are consciousness. It is the subjective element in any experience.
The brain obviously has a role in our experiences.
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Consciousness is not something that WE experience. It is not external to us. WE are consciousness. It is the subjective element in any experience.
The brain obviously has a role in our experiences.
Well we don't experience it when we are asleep or under general anaesthetic. Perhaps we could say the 'conscious self' does not exist whilst 'we' are unconscious.
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Well we don't experience it when we are asleep or under general anaesthetic. Perhaps we could say the 'conscious self' does not exist whilst 'we' are unconscious.
Consciousness in the sense of wakefulness or sense awareness is switched off when we sleep. But 'we' still exist. 'We' experience deep sleep and nothingness. 'We' wake up having slept well.
The 'We' is the Self or subjective consciousness that continues to exist... and exits only at death.
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Consciousness in the sense of wakefulness or sense awareness is switched off when we sleep. But 'we' still exist. 'We' experience deep sleep and nothingness. 'We' wake up having slept well.
The 'We' is the Self or subjective consciousness that continues to exist... and exits only at death.
What persists during sleep or unconsciousness is the deeper self, ie your memories, habits, skills etc. Your conscious self does not exist at this time, it is reconstructed at 'run time', like when your laptop recovers from sleep mode. It also fires back into life when we dream, there is a sense of 'me' involved in dreams; when the dream ends, the subjective conscious self dissipates back into nothingness again.
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What persists during sleep or unconsciousness is the deeper self, ie your memories, habits, skills etc. Your conscious self does not exist at this time, it is reconstructed at 'run time', like when your laptop recovers from sleep mode. It also fires back into life when we dream, there is a sense of 'me' involved in dreams; when the dream ends, the subjective conscious self dissipates back into nothingness again.
The computer does not have any Self. It is just a conduit that passes on experiences to the Self. The self here is the user of the computer. The user does not go out of existence regardless of whether the computer is in sleep mode or work mode.
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The computer does not have any Self. It is just a conduit that passes on experiences to the Self. The self here is the user of the computer. The user does not go out of existence regardless of whether the computer is in sleep mode or work mode.
That confuses the analogy. There is no need to bring in a separate user, otherwise what is the nature and provenance of that extra being ? Your conscious self is the running of the laptop with everything loaded into memory. Your unconscious mind is all the stuff resident on hard drives but not currently in working memory at the current moment.
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That confuses the analogy. There is no need to bring in a separate user, otherwise what is the nature and provenance of that extra being ? Your conscious self is the running of the laptop with everything loaded into memory. Your unconscious mind is all the stuff resident on hard drives but not currently in working memory at the current moment.
if the analogy is about a computer......the computer has a hardware, software, electricity and ....a User. Without a User the computer system is purposeless and has no basis to even exist in the first place. All its features are designed for the user.
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That just exemplifies the risk in using computer analogies, it invites spurious duallist teleology. Hedgehogs did not evolve so that they could be inhabited by waiting hedgehog spirits. Rather, the hedgehog's sense of self derives from the hedgehog, not something separate to it.
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That just exemplifies the risk in using computer analogies, it invites spurious duallist teleology. Hedgehogs did not evolve so that they could be inhabited by waiting hedgehog spirits. Rather, the hedgehog's sense of self derives from the hedgehog, not something separate to it.
Hedgehogs are just bodies like the old computers of the 60's and 70's. The user is what we today call Consciousness.
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The computer does not have any Self. It is just a conduit that passes on experiences to the Self. The self here is the user of the computer. The user does not go out of existence regardless of whether the computer is in sleep mode or work mode.
I note we are in "Science and Technology". Have you got any scientific evidence that this "user" exists?
If you don't, we should probably move this thread to one of the Religion and Ethics topics.
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I note we are in "Science and Technology". Have you got any scientific evidence that this "user" exists?
If you don't, we should probably move this thread to one of the Religion and Ethics topics.
The "user" in this analogy is whatever comprises conscious awareness.
The output or functionality of any computer activity has no meaning or purpose outside the conscious awareness of the user.
I believe the subject of this thread is a contemplation of the nature and origin consciousness and how it can relate with current knowledge of science and technology.
To date, we have no valid evidence that consciousness can be defined within our current knowledge of science.
All examples of emergent properties arising from complex interactions of material elements comprise functions or patterns that can be perceived and verified to be generated purely from material reactions. Such verification does not exist with consciousness because we do not know what comprises consciousness. All we have is some form of correlation with neurological brain activity, but this alone does not explain what consciousness is or how consciousness works.
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The "user" in this analogy is whatever comprises conscious awareness.
I'm fully aware of what the "user" denotes. My point is that this user has been asserted to exist, but since this is the science topic, the provision of scientific evidence for the assertion is paramount.
So far, all you and Sriram have come up with is guesses, which is fine. The next step is to think of ways of verifying the guesses by testing them in the real world. I don't see any evidence of you or Sriram doing that.
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I'm fully aware of what the "user" denotes. My point is that this user has been asserted to exist, but since this is the science topic, the provision of scientific evidence for the assertion is paramount.
So far, all you and Sriram have come up with is guesses, which is fine. The next step is to think of ways of verifying the guesses by testing them in the real world. I don't see any evidence of you or Sriram doing that.
The Self (Consciousness) exists and we all know that. That is what I call the 'User'. The 'scientific' claim is that Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
I have already provided David Chalmer's and Tononi's views in the matter.
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The Self (Consciousness) exists and we all know that. That is what I call the 'User'. The 'scientific' claim is that Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
I have already provided David Chalmer's and Tononi's views in the matter.
You merely provided a quote from Tononi to the effect that neural correlates may be insufficient (alone) to form a full explanation of consciousness. Fair enough. That doesn't mean he would support your dualist interpretation. As far as I understand neither Tononi nor Chalmers (nor Hoffman) are dualists.
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You merely provided a quote from Tononi to the effect that neural correlates may be insufficient (alone) to form a full explanation of consciousness. Fair enough. That doesn't mean he would support your dualist interpretation. As far as I understand neither Tononi nor Chalmers (nor Hoffman) are dualists.
I don't know if they are dualists or not ....but they do appear to subscribe to panpsychism...which means that consciousness or mind is fundamental and ubiquitous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
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The Self (Consciousness) exists and we all know that. That is what I call the 'User'. The 'scientific' claim is that Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
I have already provided David Chalmer's and Tononi's views in the matter.
We don't know that the 'self' exists in any real sense. We are back at the issue with Descartes' Cogito. There isn't necessarily an 'I', there is only thinking.
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We don't know that the 'self' exists in any real sense. We are back at the issue with Descartes' Cogito. There isn't necessarily an 'I', there is only thinking.
Is there any evidence that 'thinking' can exist without a 'thinker'?
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Is there any evidence that 'thinking' can exist without a 'thinker'?
Tha's missing the point. The idea of 'Self' is a single unitary thing. You have to show that exists not ask for evidence that it doesn't.
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Tha's missing the point. The idea of 'Self' is a single unitary thing. You have to show that exists not ask for evidence that it doesn't.
You suggested that there is only 'thinking' and not necessarily a 'I'. I am asking for evidence that such a thing is possible.
The fact that 'we' exist and 'we' think, is obvious. You are claiming otherwise.
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I don't know if they are dualists or not ....but they do appear to subscribe to panpsychism...which means that consciousness or mind is fundamental and ubiquitous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
None of the aforementioned believe that 'mind is fundamental', you are taking liberties of interpretation. For Hofmann, (who does not accept panpsychism, btw) minds are assemblages of 'conscious agents', spatially and temporally unique and fully consistent with the principles of evolution by natural selection; so, no minds before the Cambrian explosion. These are monist mathematical abstractions attempting to define a framework in which minds can evolve from underlying primitives in a way that is consistent with what we already know from biology and neuroscience whilst also attempting to factor in the hard problem of consciousness. This is science at a leading edge, but it is definately not woo.
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You suggested that there is only 'thinking' and not necessarily a 'I'. I am asking for evidence that such a thing is possible.
The fact that 'we' exist and 'we' think, is obvious. You are claiming otherwise.
No, you claimed we know that the self exists. You have the burden of proof. I am not claiming that it doesn't exist, just that you haven"t shown your claim to be true.
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No, you claimed we know that the self exists. You have the burden of proof. I am not claiming that it doesn't exist, just that you haven"t shown your claim to be true.
You said that there isn't necessarily a 'I'...only 'thinking'. So, I asked if you have any evidence that 'thinking' can exist without a 'thinker'.
You are a very difficult person to continue a discussion with...NS.
Cheers.
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None of the aforementioned believe that 'mind is fundamental', you are taking liberties of interpretation. For Hofmann, (who does not accept panpsychism, btw) minds are assemblages of 'conscious agents', spatially and temporally unique and fully consistent with the principles of evolution by natural selection; so, no minds before the Cambrian explosion. These are monist mathematical abstractions attempting to define a framework in which minds can evolve from underlying primitives in a way that is consistent with what we already know from biology and neuroscience whilst also attempting to factor in the hard problem of consciousness. This is science at a leading edge, but it is definately not woo.
Chalmers and Tononi clearly support panpsychism. If you read the article about the hard problem of consciousness that I linked earlier...you'll see that.
You are again bringing in 'woo'...which shows that we have to deal with the two boxes syndrome.
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You said that there isn't necessarily a 'I'...only 'thinking'. So, I asked if you have any evidence that 'thinking' can exist without a 'thinker'.
You are a very difficult person to continue a discussion with...NS.
Cheers.
Saying there isn't necessarily an unitary self is not a claim that there isn't. You made the claim that we know there is one. Your burden of proof.
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We don't know that the 'self' exists in any real sense. We are back at the issue with Descartes' Cogito. There isn't necessarily an 'I', there is only thinking.
In depth analysis of current scientific knowledge will lead to a conclusion that our material bodies are part of the continuum of this material universe governed by the same universal laws of that universe, so the concept of "self" does not exist.
The ability to reach this conclusion requires two essential ingredients - perception and thinking. For perception to occur, there needs to be a source of perception - a perceiver. For thinking to occur, there needs to be a source of determination of the thinking process - a thinker. The source is "you". It is impossible to think yourself out of existence.
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In depth analysis of current scientific knowledge will lead to a conclusion that our material bodies are part of the continuum of this material universe governed by the same universal laws of that universe, so the concept of "self" does not exist.
The ability to reach this conclusion requires two essential ingredients - perception and thinking. For perception to occur, there needs to be a source of perception - a perceiver. For thinking to occur, there needs to be a source of determination of the thinking process - a thinker. The source is "you". It is impossible to think yourself out of existence.
Current scientific knowledge indicates the opposite of a unitary self. And you are begging the question as did Sriram about the claim. The burden of proof has not been met.
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In depth analysis of current scientific knowledge will lead to a conclusion that our material bodies are part of the continuum of this material universe governed by the same universal laws of that universe, so the concept of "self" does not exist.
Does that then mean that racism does not exist, or Pilgrim's Progress, or animal migration ? I think you are limiting yourself to a very basic definition of 'exists'.
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Does that then mean that racism does not exist ...
Of course racism exists. It is evidence of human free will, - our freedom to choose between good and evil.
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The ability to reach this conclusion requires two essential ingredients - perception and thinking. For perception to occur, there needs to be a source of perception - a perceiver. For thinking to occur, there needs to be a source of determination of the thinking process - a thinker. The source is "you". It is impossible to think yourself out of existence.
To the extent that that is a reasonable characterisation of perception and thinking, it is also a reasonable to conclude that penguins and hedgehogs and hermit crabs are also perceivers and thinkers. To delimit perceiving and thinking to just h. sapiens is hubris gorged anthropocentric special pleading with no justification from observation.
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Of course racism exists. It is evidence of human free will, - our freedom to choose between good and evil.
So when it suits, you take a narrow definition of 'exists', whilst in other circumstances, you can take a more nuanced view. Why not be more consistent across the board ?
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The Self (Consciousness) exists and we all know that. That is what I call the 'User'. The 'scientific' claim is that Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
I have already provided David Chalmer's and Tononi's views in the matter.
If your claim is not a scientific claim, why are you posting in this topic. If it is a scientific claim, tell us how to falsify it.
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To the extent that that is a reasonable characterisation of perception and thinking, it is also a reasonable to conclude that penguins and hedgehogs and hermit crabs are also perceivers and thinkers. To delimit perceiving and thinking to just h. sapiens is hubris gorged anthropocentric special pleading with no justification from observation.
I have yet to see any evidence that penguins and hedgehogs and hermit crabs or indeed any other non human animal have the ability to think about the reality of their own existence. My own observance is that animals react to sensory data in a very predictable way which indicates that such reactions could be derived from programmed instincts and learnt experiences with no need of conscious thought.
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I have yet to see any evidence that penguins and hedgehogs and hermit crabs or indeed any other non human animal have the ability to think about the reality of their own existence. My own observance is that animals react to sensory data in a very predictable way which indicates that such reactions could be derived from programmed instincts and learnt experiences with no need of conscious thought.
To learn anything new requires conscious thought. Do you think someone could learn to play the piano whilst in a coma ? Its the same with all animals, for a bear cub to learn how to catch a seal takes years of focused concentration. These skills are too subtle to come 'preprogrammed' in a cubs mind. It takes cognitive effort, just as it does with human cubs.
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To learn anything new requires conscious thought. Do you think someone could learn to play the piano whilst in a coma ? Its the same with all animals, for a bear cub to learn how to catch a seal takes years of focused concentration. These skills are too subtle to come 'preprogrammed' in a cubs mind. It takes cognitive effort, just as it does with human cubs.
The concept of learning is not indicative of conscious awareness.
Computer chess programs learn from past experiences without the need for conscious awareness.
Artistic creativity such as piano playing is a dimension which can only be achieved by a combination of conscious awareness and human free will.
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The concept of learning is not indicative of conscious awareness.
Computer chess programs learn from past experiences without the need for conscious awareness.
Artistic creativity such as piano playing is a dimension which can only be achieved by a combination of conscious awareness and human free will.
In case you haven't noticed, there are differences between living things and inaminate things. We are still quite a way off the day when AGI will approach biological levels of sentience and learning so likening the way non human creatures learn to a chess playing program is way off the mark. The way a bear cub learns is much closer to the way a human infant learns. They both have eyes, and so learn through visual experience; chess programs don't have visual awareness. They both have ears and so learn through auditory experience; chess programs don't have auditory awareness. Human infants only learn when awake and paying close attention; the same is true of bear cubs, have you ever seen a cub sharpening its skills whilst it was asleep or in hibernation ? Your understanding display a remarkable depth of ignorance about the natural world
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The concept of learning is not indicative of conscious awareness.
Computer chess programs learn from past experiences without the need for conscious awareness.
Artistic creativity such as piano playing is a dimension which can only be achieved by a combination of conscious awareness and human free will.
Just back to argument by baseless assertions again. And your notion of "free will" is still self-contradictory, and hence impossible. ::)