Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Sriram on August 05, 2021, 04:12:09 PM
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article about Consciousness and Galileo's views.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/galileos-big-mistake/
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If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to see it, does it make a sound? An age-old philosophical conundrum you might think; in fact, this question was given a definitive answer in the 17th century by the father of modern science, Galileo Galilei.
A key moment in the scientific revolution was Galileo’s declaration that mathematics was to be the language of the new science; the new science was to have a purely quantitative vocabulary.
To return to the example we began with, when a tree comes crashing down in a forest, the crashing sound isn’t really in the forest, but in the consciousness of an onlooker. No onlooker, no consciousness, no sound.
In Galileo’s worldview, there is a radical division between the following two things:
The physical world with its purely quantitative properties, which is the domain of science,
Consciousness, with its qualities, which is outside of the domain of science.
It was this fundamental division that allowed for the possibility of mathematical physics: once the qualities had been removed, all that remained of the physical world could be captured in mathematics. And hence, natural science, for Galileo, was never intended to give us a complete description of reality. The whole project was premised on setting qualitative consciousness outside of the domain of science.
Although this problem is taken very seriously, many assume that the way to deal with this challenge is simply to continue with our standard methods for investigating the brain.
This common approach is, in my view, rooted in a profound misunderstanding of the history of science. We rightly celebrate the success of physical science, but it has been successful precisely because it was designed, by Galileo, to exclude consciousness.
I think we can have confidence that we will one day have a science of consciousness, but we need to rethink what science is. The science of Galileo was not designed to deal with consciousness. If we now want a science of consciousness, we need to move to a more expansive "post-Galilean" conception of the scientific method, one that takes seriously both the quantitative properties of matter than we know about through observation and experiment, and the qualitative reality of consciousness that each of us knows through our immediate awareness of our feelings and experiences.
Nothing short of a revolution is called for, and it’s already on its way.
Consciousness is at the root of human identity; indeed, it is arguably the basis of everything of value in human existence. This new scientific revolution will transform not only our understanding of the physical universe, but also of what it means to be a human being.
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Cheers.
Sriram
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Oh boy...
Noise is the human recognition of compression waves in a fluid reaching the inner ear. Whether someone is there or not, we have no reason to think that a tree falling would suddenly not produce exactly the same compression waves in the atmosphere, so yes, a tree in a forest makes a sound.
To Galileo, the activity of the human brain possibly did appear something beyond science. Modern fMRI, neurology, neurochemistry, CAT scans and any number of other investigative matters shows that in fact it isn't.
Galileo, and indeed many of the early Enlightenment scholars that followed him, didn't do what they did to exclude consciousness because of some artificial delineation between science and consciousness but because the identified the subjectivity of the human experience and were trying to replace it with objective measurement and cold, hard reason and logic.
Which just leaves the question of whether consciousness is a facet of brain activity or indications of something else, and for all your cheerleading for the next big discovery, we still don't have any evidence, scientific or otherwise, to support the contention that there's an external element to consciousness.
That ball is still in your court, waiting for you to choose which methodological racket you want to try and play it with.
O.
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Sriram clutches at another straw.... ::)
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There is plenty of evidence that......more and more scientists are considering consciousness as not just an emergent property born of random variations. They consider it as much more fundamental and they even consider evolution as a product of consciousness. The existing scientific method is increasingly seen as a limitation in certain areas.
Your old school science is on the way out. You guys better get used to it and make way for the new.....
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There is plenty of evidence that......more and more scientists are considering consciousness as not just an emergent property born of random variations.
And have any of the produced anything to validate the idea? They can do all the science they want - and they absolutely should do all the science they can - but it's the output that matters in this instance. Have they produced anything that validates any of these ideas?
They consider it as much more fundamental and they even consider evolution as a product of consciousness.
Well now that depends; they may be investigating IF this is the case. They might or might believe it to be the case, but if they're decent scientists they'll hold any conclusions until they have the data to support it.
The existing scientific method is increasingly seen as a limitation in certain areas.
No, it isn't. There are people who want to depict the scientific method as limited because it doesn't validate their pet theory, but until and unless they can come up with an alternative then science is still the best tool we have. It has limitations, but those limitations haven't changed over time, they aren't suddenly not up to the task.
Your old school science is on the way out.
So you keep saying, but you haven't yet explained where this new school is.
You guys better get used to it and make way for the new.....
Just so I can be prepared, is it going to get here before or after widespread nuclear fusion power, or hydrogen fuel cells?
O.
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Sriram clutches at another straw.... ::)
...consciousness as not just an emergent property born of random variations....
Shows basic misunderstanding.
Your old school science is on the way out...
And trots out another of his tired old clichés.
...and they even consider evolution as a product of consciousness.
Who's 'they'? You'd need a lot more than most panpsychism ideas to make consciousness have anything to do with evolution. The only time I recall your posting anything about evolution being 'intelligent' it was just you misunderstanding it.
It's not even as if the article has much to say, it's virtually a book advert. I'm not sure what brand of panpsychism this philosopher (not scientist) is peddling, but, as I keep pointing out, panpsychism (at least in any of the forms I'm so far encountered) is not going to support your other woo like an afterlife and it most certainly isn't going to impact on your fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.
That one of the panpsychism speculations might be true is not impossible (and it would be a fascinating discovery), it's just that, so far, there is no evidence to support any of them. It's your uncritical certainty that is so irrational.
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Don't keep harping on and on about evidence. We have already discussed all this. Lots of things are accepted in science without direct measurable evidence. Strings, Parallel Universes, Time travel etc. are examples.....and all these are discussed in science forums with enthusiasm.
Your atheistic and materialistic mindsets are unable to accept something that you have believed for decades to be 'supernatural' or 'woo' or whatever....is now beginning to be discussed in science circles. This is merely a stubborn refusal to recognize various aspects of reality that are outside the standard model.
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Don't keep harping on and on about evidence. We have already discussed all this. Lots of things are accepted in science without direct measurable evidence. Strings, Parallel Universes, Time travel etc. are examples.....and all these are discussed in science forums with enthusiasm.
Except that they simply aren't just accepted without evidence. If you kept on telling us (for example) that time travel was definitely possible and quoting every person who had some conjecture about it, that would be almost as irrational as what you're actually doing.
The 'almost' is only because there is a well tested theory that suggests it's possible in certain (rather unrealistic) circumstances. If you were just latching on to every speculation about it (even when they contradicted each other), it would be exactly as irrational.
The problem is that your motivation is a clear as day. You want your superstitions to be validated by science. As I said before, it's by no means impossible that one of the speculations about consciousness may be true, but they certainly can't all be true and neither do any of the remotely credible (even as speculations) ones support all of your favourite superstitions.
Your atheistic and materialistic mindsets are unable to accept something that you have believed for decades to be 'supernatural' or 'woo' or whatever....is now beginning to be discussed in science circles. This is merely a stubborn refusal to recognize various aspects of reality that are outside the standard model.
I'm not denying that there is a lot that we don't know, but it's you who have the obvious agenda here, not the people pointing out problems, contradictions, and lack of evidence for the various speculations you keep posting. It's also not the rest of us that are refusing to accept well tested and complete explanations which are not to our liking.
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It is obvious that many of you have an agenda and a rigid materialistic mind set. That becomes clear from the fact that you still refer to such matters as superstition, in spite of reading the views of so many scientists and modern philosophers...... ::)
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It is obvious that many of you have an agenda and a rigid materialistic mind set. That becomes clear from the fact that you still refer to such matters as superstition, in spite of reading the views of so many scientists and modern philosophers...... ::)
Actually, it's your set of beliefs that have the hallmarks of superstition, rather than the individual conjectures you keep referring to. As I keep pointing out, none of the remotely credible conjectures you've linked to would satisfy all the things you seem so determined must be true.
Conjecture is one thing while certainty without evidence is something entirely different.
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Don't keep harping on and on about evidence.
Then don't keep harping on about the future of post-science understanding and the mystic woo...
]quote]We have already discussed all this.[/quote]
Yet you keep forgetting to bring the methodology to conduct whatever process will support your assertions.
Lots of things are accepted in science without direct measurable evidence. Strings, Parallel Universes, Time travel etc. are examples...
None of those are accepted science. Strings are verging on a testable hypothesis, I think, but I've not seen any evidentiary basis to accept them yet. Parallel universes and time travel are notional concepts which could, potentially, but subject to scientific enquiry at some point but not currently.
Your atheistic and materialistic mindsets are unable to accept something that you have believed for decades to be 'supernatural' or 'woo' or whatever...
Atheism has nothing to do with it, there are any number of religious believers who might accept your notions but would tell you that it's a belief and not science. As to materialism... I'm not immutably beholden to materialism, but it is the underlying principle of science. Again, if you have another system then bring it along.
..is now beginning to be discussed in science circles.
What scientific circles? If you say you're a scientist, but you have to throw science away to justify your claim then you're not a scientist.
This is merely a stubborn refusal to recognize various aspects of reality that are outside the standard model.
There are things we know are outside the standard model - a quantum model of gravity, for instance. There may be other things outside the standard model that we've not discovered yet. You're trying to suggest something's outside the standard model not because we can't explain it, but because when we do explain the phenomenon you want it to be something else.
The problem here isn't limitations of science, but your desperation to try to put something else - something that you've still not adequately justified or explained - on an even footing with science in order to support woo.
You are expressing frustration at this cycle; if you don't like this response, then you need to give a different prompt. So long as you keep coming up with new age mysticism and a complaint that it's beyond the limitations of science, we'll keep coming back with 'what's your alternative methodology'. If you want to break the cycle, bring your methodology to justify your claims, not just your distaste for the well-established methodology that doesn't justify them.
O.
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:D :D There you go..... What New Age mysticism? The articles I have linked about consciousness and evolution (in the other thread) sounds like New Age mysticism to you? Near Death Experiences sound like new age mysticism to you?
This is the bias I am talking about..... the two boxes syndrome! :D
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:D :D There you go..... What New Age mysticism? The articles I have linked about consciousness and evolution (in the other thread) sounds like New Age mysticism to you?
Yes. Attempts to suggest that some universal consciousness is guiding evolution sounds like New Age mysticism to me.
Near Death Experiences sound like new age mysticism to you?
No, they sound like a phenomenon. Your explanation for that phenomenon, however, is at least NAM-adjacent.
This is the bias I am talking about..... the two boxes syndrome! :D
This is not 'bias', this is discernment. You take a phenomenon which has a viable scientific explanation, you dismiss that because science is 'so old school', make a claim about mystic-woo, fail to offer any substantiation for that claim (or any mechanism by which such a substantiation could be achieved) and then cry foul when people point out that you've got nothing but an unsubstantiated claim of magic.
This is not bias, this is a fair conclusion on the lack of evidence not presented in support of your claim.
O.
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You can call for more investigation and look for more evidence etc. etc. That is fine.
But it is the labeling you do that I am talking about. That is what is the issue. That clearly shows the mindset and the bias.
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You can call for more investigation and look for more evidence etc. etc. That is fine.
Thanks.
But it is the labeling you do that I am talking about. That is what is the issue. That clearly shows the mindset and the bias.
How? You come along with a claim in defiance of conventional science, with not just no backing but not even an idea of how you'd start to overturn the accepted science, you claim 'science' is backing you but don't actually cite any, and then say 'bias'.
If you're suggesting something that defies the current understanding of science without any justification or support, be it evidentiary, logical, mathematical or something else, then you have to accept that it's going to be called woo, because... that's what woo is.
Sciency-sounding, but fundamentally unsupported and often actively anti-scientific claims are woo. What you're doing ticks all those boxes.
Sciency-sounding - check.
Not supported by current accepted science - check.
Actively discounting current science - check.
Ergo - woo.
You don't like it being called woo, don't bring woo to the discussion.
O.
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:D :D There you go..... What New Age mysticism? The articles I have linked about consciousness and evolution (in the other thread) sounds like New Age mysticism to you? Near Death Experiences sound like new age mysticism to you?
This is the bias I am talking about..... the two boxes syndrome! :D
Nope.
When professional scientists who are specialists in the relevant fields (neuroscience etc) publish in a relevant peer reviewed scientific journal that they are using specified methods to test the theory/hypothesis that cauliflowers are conscious, and in doing so they present their data and conclusions then there might - just might, mind - be a basis to consider that consciousness outwith neurology (e.g. brains) is indeed a testable possibility: but until then such ideas are best viewed as being pseudoscientific woo aimed at those who like that sort of thing.
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It is not just a matter of testable and non-testable phenomena. That is easy. Many non-testable phenomena exist even under the label of science. People keep trying to find evidence and after many decades they may find suitable evidence.....or even otherwise, they remain interesting ideas. I have given these examples already.... Strings, Parallel Universes, time travel and so on.
In the case of consciousness and NDE's and such other phenomena however, it has become an ideological divide. It is a science vs religion divide. This is a major problem....and if a similar archaic attitude is held by other professional scientists....it could put back our understanding by several decades. That is what I am talking about.
My interest in bringing up the views of so many professional scientists and philosophers is precisely to bridge this ideological gap and to reduce the impact of the two boxes syndrome.
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It is not just a matter of testable and non-testable phenomena. That is easy. Many non-testable phenomena exist even under the label of science. People keep trying to find evidence and after many decades they may find suitable evidence.....or even otherwise, they remain interesting ideas. I have given these examples already.... Strings, Parallel Universes, time travel and so on.
It does seem to be a tenet of your religion to never, ever, under any circumstances, risk actually learning anything. Yet again: "Parallel universes" aren't even a (singular) thing and time travel is (in scientific terms) no more than academically interesting but completely useless and untestable solutions to Einstein's field equations (one of them involves the whole universe rotating).
String theory is one of many hypotheses that attempt to solve a known problem in physics, namely uniting general relativity with quantum field theory. You could (just about) get away with comparing that to the integrated information theory of consciousness, which has had published papers, but has also been heavily criticised by most other researchers in the field.
IIT, however, even if it's entirely correct, is not going to support your woo claims. It's doesn't give us minds without brains, an afterlife, or make the slightest difference to evolution.
In the case of consciousness and NDE's and such other phenomena however, it has become an ideological divide. It is a science vs religion divide.
Except it actually isn't. The 'hard problem' of consciousness is called the 'hard problem' for a reason. Philosophers and some scientists have been speculating about it for a very long time. The problem is bringing any of these speculations into serious science that has some hope of being tested. As for NDEs, your problem is not that they aren't being investigated, it's that you don't like the real science and want to latch on to the shoddy studies and wild speculations that conforms to your superstitions, rather than following the evidence.
My interest in bringing up the views of so many professional scientists and philosophers is precisely to bridge this ideological gap and to reduce the impact of the two boxes syndrome.
It's quite right that people are refusing to blindly accept baseless speculation, shoddy work, and obvious nonsense. It's not that serious work on consciousness is not going on, it's that you don't like most of the directions it's going in because, again, they don't line up with your superstitions.
You are the one with the two boxes here, one for things you like (which must be true) and one for things you don't like (that must be false or incomplete).
You've decided on the answers to all these things and now you're just pushing anything that you think might support them. That's not 'new science', it's the exact opposite of science.
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As regards the tree falling in the forest, if 'sound' is an experienced percept of an acoustic wave that has passed through auditory physiology, I would say that if there is no experiencer there is no sound but there is an acoustic wave of the appropriate audio frequency. I would say that sound is the subjective product of a conscious brain which is why one can hear voices apparently arising from people appearing in dreams.
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As regards the tree falling in the forest, if 'sound' is an experienced percept of an acoustic wave that has passed through auditory physiology, I would say that if there is no experiencer there is no sound but there is an acoustic wave of the appropriate audio frequency. I would say that sound is the subjective product of a conscious brain which is why one can hear voices apparently arising from people appearing in dreams.
Yes...we not only hear things but also see, smell, taste and feel lots of things in our dreams. Even in our imagination we can see and experience many things. Experiences are mental in nature felt by consciousness. Our sensory organs only facilitate the process and our brain is just a platform on which it happens.
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Yes...we not only hear things but also see, smell, taste and feel lots of things in our dreams. Even in our imagination we can see and experience many things. Experiences are mental in nature felt by consciousness. Our sensory organs only facilitate the process and our brain is just a platform on which it happens.
The brain is not a platform. The experience of seeing is the phenomenology of your brain interacting with electromagnetic radiation via sense organs. It is a conceptual mistake to think of the brain like some general purpose computer upon which software runs
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It is not just a matter of testable and non-testable phenomena. That is easy. Many non-testable phenomena exist even under the label of science.
No. If it's not testable, it's not a matter of scientific enquiry. It might be verified, validated or otherwise supported by other means - philosophically, logically - but it's not science if you can't test it, that's fundamental to the concept.
People keep trying to find evidence and after many decades they may find suitable evidence.....or even otherwise, they remain interesting ideas. I have given these examples already.... Strings, Parallel Universes, time travel and so on.
And, again, only one of those, with possible means of testing, is currently within the realms of science. As has been repeatedly pointed out.
In the case of consciousness and NDE's and such other phenomena however, it has become an ideological divide.
No. You just don't have anything to offer. It's not ideological, it's methodological. You don't have a methodology, it would seem.
It is a science vs religion divide. This is a major problem....and if a similar archaic attitude is held by other professional scientists....it could put back our understanding by several decades. That is what I am talking about.
Except that you aren't talking about understanding, you're talking about accepting claims without any understanding. Why accept your claim and not anyone else's baseless claim? Why accept your idea that NDE's are an artifact of non-corporeal consciousness but dismiss Scientology's claims of Xenu which have exactly as little basis?
My interest in bringing up the views of so many professional scientists and philosophers is precisely to bridge this ideological gap and to reduce the impact of the two boxes syndrome.
Who are these 'professional scientists'? You claim they're out there, but I haven't seen you cite anyone's work, I haven't seen links to peer-reviewed papers - not just from you, but if this were out there it would be in the major journals, it would be on the front pages of the newspapers.
O.
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No. If it's not testable, it's not a matter of scientific enquiry. It might be verified, validated or otherwise supported by other means - philosophically, logically - but it's not science if you can't test it, that's fundamental to the concept.
And, again, only one of those, with possible means of testing, is currently within the realms of science. As has been repeatedly pointed out.
No. You just don't have anything to offer. It's not ideological, it's methodological. You don't have a methodology, it would seem.
Except that you aren't talking about understanding, you're talking about accepting claims without any understanding. Why accept your claim and not anyone else's baseless claim? Why accept your idea that NDE's are an artifact of non-corporeal consciousness but dismiss Scientology's claims of Xenu which have exactly as little basis?
Who are these 'professional scientists'? You claim they're out there, but I haven't seen you cite anyone's work, I haven't seen links to peer-reviewed papers - not just from you, but if this were out there it would be in the major journals, it would be on the front pages of the newspapers.
O.
That is why learned people are calling for a revolution in science.
From the OP....
"we need to rethink what science is. The science of Galileo was not designed to deal with consciousness. If we now want a science of consciousness, we need to move to a more expansive "post-Galilean" conception of the scientific method, one that takes seriously both the quantitative properties of matter than we know about through observation and experiment, and the qualitative reality of consciousness that each of us knows through our immediate awareness of our feelings and experiences".
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That is why learned people are calling for a revolution in science.
From the OP....
"we need to rethink what science is. The science of Galileo was not designed to deal with consciousness. If we now want a science of consciousness, we need to move to a more expansive "post-Galilean" conception of the scientific method, one that takes seriously both the quantitative properties of matter than we know about through observation and experiment, and the qualitative reality of consciousness that each of us knows through our immediate awareness of our feelings and experiences".
That doesn't equate to abandoning the principle of being rigorous and methodological or being constrained by evidence and observation.
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That doesn't equate to abandoning the principle of being rigorous and methodological or being constrained by evidence and observation.
But we know that born blind people have no evidence of light. In an isolated situation....why and how would they find evidence of light?
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But we know that born blind people have no evidence of light. In an isolated situation....why and how would they find evidence of light?
they can buy a light meter, about £20 on Amazon. That would confirm that light does in fact exist.
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they can buy a light meter, about £20 on Amazon. That would confirm that light does in fact exist.
You don't get it. In an isolated situation....a community of born blind people living in an island. They have no clue that Light exists. Why and how would they go about creating a 'science' that would provide them with suitable evidence that Light exists and what it actually is?
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You don't get it. In an isolated situation....a community of born blind people living in an island. They have no clue that Light exists. Why and how would they go about creating a 'science' that would provide them with suitable evidence that Light exists and what it actually is?
We are an isolated community. All people on this planet are blind with respect to dark matter, but we can detect it indirectly and indirect observation puts constraints on our ideas about what it might be. Nobody has ever seen a subatomic particle, but indirect observation allows us to model them
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We are an isolated community. All people on this planet are blind with respect to dark matter, but we can detect it indirectly and indirect observation puts constraints on our ideas about what it might be. Nobody has ever seen a subatomic particle, but indirect observation allows us to model them
Yes...but all the things that we detect are detectable in one way or the other. They are merely extensions or extrapolated aspects of other objects that we know of.
Light, on the other hand, to a born blind isolated community does not even exist. There is no way they can even presume that it exists.
My point is about evidence. Creating a science and a method to measure and observe something that is outside our physical observable world and about which we have no idea, is tricky.
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You don't get it. In an isolated situation....a community of born blind people living in an island. They have no clue that Light exists. Why and how would they go about creating a 'science' that would provide them with suitable evidence that Light exists and what it actually is?
They would feel the warmth of the sun and base a science around that. They could arrive at a theory of thermodynamics. They would perhaps notice that sometimes although the sun was not warm enough to produce much heat they might experience burning and conclude there was another type of emanation (UV) and conjecture that there might be many types of emanation beyond the four senses.
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They would feel the warmth of the sun and base a science around that. They could arrive at a theory of thermodynamics. They would perhaps notice that sometimes although the sun was not warm enough to produce much heat they might experience burning and conclude there was another type of emanation (UV) and conjecture that there might be many types of emanation beyond the four senses.
Yes...I agree they would have other sensations (heat) to examine. But from that ....to conclude that something like Light existed and to understand its exact properties and pervasive nature, would be next to impossible.
What sort of evidence would they have to enable any sort of an 'observation' and investigation given that they are blind people?
I am just trying to being out the tricky nature of 'evidence'. Evidence for certain phenomena could be present all around us and still be outside our natural capabilities of observation.
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I am just trying to being out the tricky nature of 'evidence'. Evidence for certain phenomena could be present all around us and still be outside our natural capabilities of observation.
As long as one is open to the possibility of such phenomena whilst being aware that possibility doesn't necessarily mean actuality then I see no problem. This, of course, is one of the strengths of science. Of course, evidence can be tricky to obtain, but until intersubjective evidence is obtained, any conjectures will remain conjectures without any solid foundation.
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Yes...I agree they would have other sensations (heat) to examine. But from that ....to conclude that something like Light existed and to understand its exact properties and pervasive nature, would be next to impossible.
What sort of evidence would they have to enable any sort of an 'observation' and investigation given that they are blind people?
I am just trying to being out the tricky nature of 'evidence'. Evidence for certain phenomena could be present all around us and still be outside our natural capabilities of observation.
I think people around here see evidence as having to be material, unearthed by science and how material is observed to move around. In a community with only four senses we would expect the technology to be based around those and I suppose, the four senses to be heightened. I would imagine language to be more important.
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As long as one is open to the possibility of such phenomena whilst being aware that possibility doesn't necessarily mean actuality then I see no problem. This, of course, is one of the strengths of science. Of course, evidence can be tricky to obtain, but until intersubjective evidence is obtained, any conjectures will remain conjectures without any solid foundation.
I have no problem with considering these phenomena as conjecture or hypotheses. It is labeling them as religious beliefs and dismissing them entirely as superstition while offering convoluted material explanations....that is what I am arguing against.
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I have no problem with considering these phenomena as conjecture or hypotheses. It is labeling them as religious beliefs and dismissing them entirely as superstition while offering convoluted material explanations....that is what I am arguing against.
But surely people pushing ideas that have no supporting evidence or method of verification/falsification are doing so on a religious or superstitious basis? What else?
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But surely people pushing ideas that have no supporting evidence or method of verification/falsification are doing so on a religious or superstitious basis? What else?
Are strings or parallel universes or time travel, religious or superstitious ideas?
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That is why learned people are calling for a revolution in science.
From the OP....
One guy misunderstanding science is not 'learned people calling for a revolution'.
"we need to rethink what science is. The science of Galileo was not designed to deal with consciousness. If we now want a science of consciousness, we need to move to a more expansive "post-Galilean" conception of the scientific method, one that takes seriously both the quantitative properties of matter than we know about through observation and experiment, and the qualitative reality of consciousness that each of us knows through our immediate awareness of our feelings and experiences".
No. The error is starting right at you in the middle of that excerpt that you posted - we don't 'know' through our immediate awareness, as you're so fond of pointing out. Our understanding is both fallible and subjective. That extends to our understanding of ourselves. Just because we feel something doesn't make it justified.
You don't get it. In an isolated situation....a community of born blind people living in an island. They have no clue that Light exists. Why and how would they go about creating a 'science' that would provide them with suitable evidence that Light exists and what it actually is?
The same way we discovered magnetism, for which we don't have a direct sensory organ - through its effect on the world around us. Maybe they'd monitor the movement of phototropic plants, maybe they'd hypothesise on the source of warmth they feel from the sun (as mentioned elsewhere).
O.
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Are strings or parallel universes or time travel, religious or superstitious ideas?
That is a false dichotomy, Sriram.
These ideas might be better described as being speculation based on science for which, as yet, there is no suitable method of investigation that would be sufficient to accept or reject these ideas.
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Yes...but all the things that we detect are detectable in one way or the other. They are merely extensions or extrapolated aspects of other objects that we know of.
Light, on the other hand, to a born blind isolated community does not even exist. There is no way they can even presume that it exists.
Like us an magnetism? We can detect anything that has an effect, in principle.
My point is about evidence. Creating a science and a method to measure and observe something that is outside our physical observable world and about which we have no idea, is tricky.
Yes. That's why it's important to understand how it works, and its limitations, and why it's important not to presume non-existence from a current lack of evidence, but also not to presume existence despite a lack of current evidence.
What you're doing, though, goes beyond that: you're promoting the idea that something is intrinsically beyond science, yet has some measurable, demonstrable effect. That's fundamentally misunderstanding how science works.
O.
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Like us an magnetism? We can detect anything that has an effect, in principle.
Yes. That's why it's important to understand how it works, and its limitations, and why it's important not to presume non-existence from a current lack of evidence, but also not to presume existence despite a lack of current evidence.
What you're doing, though, goes beyond that: you're promoting the idea that something is intrinsically beyond science, yet has some measurable, demonstrable effect. That's fundamentally misunderstanding how science works.
O.
I know how science works....and that is why I keep highlighting its limitations. And that is why I link articles of philosophers and scientists who understand its limitations and are willing to look at those aspects of reality that lie beyond the scope of current science.
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I know how science works....and that is why I keep highlighting its limitations.
No, you keep arbitrarily claiming that some things are beyond science's remit without explaining how or why. The examples that you give are not only firmly within science's capacity, but we have current adequate scientific explanations for them, and you aren't pointing out any limitations with those, you're just claiming an exemption.
And that is why I link articles of philosophers and scientists who understand its limitations and are willing to look at those aspects of reality that lie beyond the scope of current science.
Science's limitation do not preclude it explaining consciousness or Near Death Experiences, as things stand. These are observed phenomena that scientific enquiry can investigate and test. Until, and unless, we see something involved that not only does not have a potentially detectable explanation, but somehow could not have (and I can't imagine how that would be), or until some other reliable methodology is presented which is better suited to the investigation, the very real limitations of science will not impact upon this study.
Science is the investigative process by which we examine observable, measurable, detectable phenomena. Near death experiences are an observable phenomenon. Consciousness is an observable phenomenon. What limitation of science precludes them investigating those phenomena?
O.
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No, you keep arbitrarily claiming that some things are beyond science's remit without explaining how or why. The examples that you give are not only firmly within science's capacity, but we have current adequate scientific explanations for them, and you aren't pointing out any limitations with those, you're just claiming an exemption.
Science's limitation do not preclude it explaining consciousness or Near Death Experiences, as things stand. These are observed phenomena that scientific enquiry can investigate and test. Until, and unless, we see something involved that not only does not have a potentially detectable explanation, but somehow could not have (and I can't imagine how that would be), or until some other reliable methodology is presented which is better suited to the investigation, the very real limitations of science will not impact upon this study.
Science is the investigative process by which we examine observable, measurable, detectable phenomena. Near death experiences are an observable phenomenon. Consciousness is an observable phenomenon. What limitation of science precludes them investigating those phenomena?
O.
For a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Some convoluted explanation or the other is offered for every phenomenon because that is the only explanation possible given current scientific methods. That is then taken as the final word.
Consciousness being an emergent property of the brain....is not a good enough explanation. NDE's being mere hallucinations generated by a dying brain....is not a good enough explanation.
You will say...'Ok...so provide us with the right explanation which can be examined by our scientific methods'. No...the current scientific methods are just not good enough for certain phenomena. A microscope is not suitable to examine everything.
That is why there is a call among more and more people to overcome this situation...and to develop better and more suitable methods. This obviously, cannot happen in a day. It has to evolve and develop over time.
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Consciousness being an emergent property of the brain....is not a good enough explanation.
Why not?
NDE's being mere hallucinations generated by a dying brain....is not a good enough explanation.
Not sure I'd use the word hallucination, but as neurological phenomena associate with extreme oxygen deprivation.
But, why not? Why is this not a good enough explanation? Seems pretty good to me as it is based on evidence.
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Why not?
Not sure I'd use the word hallucination, but as neurological phenomena associate with extreme oxygen deprivation.
But, why not? Why is this not a good enough explanation? Seems pretty good to me as it is based on evidence.
No...it is not based on evidence. That is the only explanation possible given the limitations of physicalism and the scientific method....which is very different from evidence.
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No...it is not based on evidence. That is the only explanation possible given the limitations of physicalism and the scientific method....which is very different from evidence.
Rubbish - it is based on evidence, for example that people reporting NDE have elevated CO2 blood levels (an indicator of low oxygen) and it is possible to induce very similar phenomena in other situations that result in oxygen deprivation to the brain, notably through exposure to extreme g force.
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Your old school science is on the way out.
Oh you mean that 'old school science' which about 18 months ago when people started getting ill in China:
1. Identified the source of the infection
2. Completely sequenced the genome of the virus and determined its protein structure
3. Developed models to determine how the virus is transmitted
4. Used 3 above to recommend methods to mitigate against transmission
5. Identified treatments that help to reduce the severity of disease and prevent people from dying
6. Used 2 to develop, test and roll out a number of highly successful vaccines
7. Continued to use the scientific method to identify new variants, determine whether they are of concern and whether the vaccines will work against them
8. Use 2, 6 and 7 to develop modified vaccines to deal with new variants
Yeh, stupid old school science, clearly neither correct nor useful Sriram.
You guys better get used to it and make way for the new.....
Yup, let's use mumbo jumbo to solve problems such as pandemics, rather than old school science, because if you really, really, really want to magic up a vaccine, I'm sure you can using pseudoscience. :o
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Are strings or parallel universes or time travel, religious or superstitious ideas?
There is a very simple, well understood test for a theory being scientific. That is: can it be shown to be false by observation or experiment.
String theory is maths; as far as I know, to this point models based on it have not progressed to making assertions that are falsifiable.
Parallel universes and time travel are speculation, of little use for anything except fiction. They are not falsifiable. When fiction or mythology are proselytized as facts they become religions.
I love fiction and mythology and am quite happy with most religious outlooks, but they are not science.
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Rubbish - it is based on evidence, for example that people reporting NDE have elevated CO2 blood levels (an indicator of low oxygen) and it is possible to induce very similar phenomena in other situations that result in oxygen deprivation to the brain, notably through exposure to extreme g force.
What kind of evidence is that? Obviously, when people are deprived of oxygen they could very well have a OBE...similar to a NDE. The evidence matches.
How does that prove that it is just a brain related phenomenon and not a real OBE?
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How does that prove that it is just a brain related phenomenon and not a real OBE?
OBE - out of body experience?
What on earth do you mean by a real OBE - that presupposes that there is something not associated with a neurological phenomenon and if you wish to make that assertion you need to provide some evidence to support it. There is of course amply evidence to support it being a neurological phenomenon so to go further than that not only is base-less (as there is no evidence) but also falls foul of Occam as the neurological explanation is sufficient to explain the phenomenon.
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OBE - out of body experience?
What on earth do you mean by a real OBE - that presupposes that there is something not associated with a neurological phenomenon and if you wish to make that assertion you need to provide some evidence to support it. There is of course amply evidence to support it being a neurological phenomenon so to go further than that not only is base-less (as there is no evidence) but also falls foul of Occam as the neurological explanation is sufficient to explain the phenomenon.
You talk of oxygen deprivation, which is a near death situation. A person has a OBE (Yes...Out of body experience) and you claim it is because of neurological reasons!! That is absurd.
Oh....our friend Occam again! :D According to Occam (being a friar), God is the simplest explanation with least assumptions.
In any case, if a person has an OBE the simplest explanation is to accept that he had an OBE! To assume that the brain for some reason, creates such illusions, is neither simple nor likely to be true.
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You talk of oxygen deprivation, which is a near death situation. A person has a OBE (Yes...Out of body experience) and you claim it is because of neurological reasons!! That is absurd.
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Not absurd at all, all our senses have neurological derivation. Have you never lost your sense of balance ? An OBE happens when your sense of proprioception (your sense of body position) misfires momentarily. We don't need to invent fantastical explanations for every odd or unusual episode. That is known as 'losing the plot'.
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Not absurd at all, all our senses have neurological derivation. Have you never lost your sense of balance ? An OBE happens when your sense of proprioception (your sense of body position) misfires momentarily. We don't need to invent fantastical explanations for every odd or unusual episode. That is known as 'losing the plot'.
OBE's are actual consistent experiences had by many people across the world. To explain it away in mere neurological terms is the problem.
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OBE's are actual consistent experiences had by many people across the world. To explain it away in mere neurological terms is the problem.
Is there a contrary explanation that corresponds to what we know about mental experiences (such as a feeling of being outwith one's body)?
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In any case, if a person has an OBE the simplest explanation is to accept that he had an OBE! To assume that the brain for some reason, creates such illusions, is neither simple nor likely to be true.
You spend half your time fretting about 'why' rather than 'how' when 'why' is often not a relevant question.
Now you seem to be confused about 'what' rather than how - the 'what' of OBE is a perception of being out of one's body - that tells us nothing about how. We are addressing the 'how' - how is it that we perceive that we are outside our body, simply saying it is an OBE tells us nothing about the how.
Yet of course we have a perfectly sensible and evidence based explanation (albeit we still don't know all the details) - a neurological phenomenon. We need nothing more.
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OBE's are actual consistent experiences had by many people across the world. To explain it away in mere neurological terms is the problem.
Non-sense - we have the same basic neurobiology across the world so why would the notion that people across the world have similar experiences be inconsistent with a neurological explanation.
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Oh....our friend Occam again! :D According to Occam (being a friar), God is the simplest explanation with least assumptions.
Nope - Occam is about the fewest necessary assumptions - if you have a perfectly reasonable explanation without the need to add the complexity of god (as we do) then adding in god is not a necessary assumption and falls foul of Occam.
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What kind of evidence is that? Obviously, when people are deprived of oxygen they could very well have a OBE...similar to a NDE. The evidence matches.
How does that prove that it is just a brain related phenomenon and not a real OBE?
Firstly, it doesn't prove it at all, because the job of science isn't to prove but to produce evidence, to give the most likely explanations for the evidence and to continue to collate evidence with as near objectivity as possible in order to challenge, support or modify such explanations.
Secondly, even assuming that there is a distinction between types of OBEs, you don't get to decide what is a 'real OBE' and what isn't.
Thirdly, many people have reported OBEs in all sorts of circumstances, including: as children, under the influence of drugs/chemicals, in a sleeping/waking state, during electrical stimulation of the brain, during NDEs, whilst under extreme stress, when there is a lack of oxygen. It is also worth empasising that during an NDE one cannot tell whether the NDE occurs before, during or after the brain flatlines. Also, a fairly recent study(Karolinska study) has shown that convincing OBEs can be induced in participants by using head mounted displays and the use of touch.
Fourthly, what evidence have you been able to produce for your own view that, in some way, something actually leaves the body? As far as I can see you rely almost exclusively on anecdotal accounts which hardly count as evidence, however much you may be convinced by them. Sam Parnia, in both his Aware studies, at least tried to test whether an OBE was real by producing targets which only the person could see whilst undergoing this experience. As Dr Parnia said himself:
anybody who claimed to have left their body and be near the ceiling during resuscitation attempts would be expected to identify those targets. If, however, such perceptions are psychological, then one would obviously not expect the targets to be identified
Parnia S; Waller D. G; Yeates R; Fenwick P. (2001). "A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of the Incidence, Features and Aetiology of Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Survivors". Resuscitation. 48 (2): 149–156.
And the results, as with all other similar attempts so far, were negative.
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Came across this article this morning which is a fascinating read, about a modern robot dog with (it sounds like) 'dog' behaviours and it does make references to consciousness.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/10/dogs-inner-life-what-robot-pet-taught-me-about-consciousness-artificial-intelligence
I don't think I'd like to have one of these around the house.
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Came across this article this morning which is a fascinating read, about a modern robot dog with (it sounds like) 'dog' behaviours and it does make references to consciousness.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/10/dogs-inner-life-what-robot-pet-taught-me-about-consciousness-artificial-intelligence
I don't think I'd like to have one of these around the house.
Some extracts from the article.....
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“Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?” Chalmers wrote. “It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.” Twenty-five years later, we are no closer to understanding why.
But as the computer scientist Seymour Papert once noted, all the analogy has demonstrated is that the problems that have long stumped philosophers and theologians “come up in equivalent form in the new context”. The metaphor has not solved our most pressing existential problems; it has merely transferred them to a new substrate.
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Some issues I have with the robot dog (besides not wanting to own one)...
1. The dog merely behaves like a dog. It does not have the same experiences (qualia) as a real dog. It lacks consciousness.
2. The robot dog needs someone to run it. A real dog doesn't need anyone.
3. The robot dog has been developed by intelligent beings....which confirms the fact that intelligent beings are required to create and develop such things. The robot did not get created through random variations and natural selection.
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For a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
For a person without a toolbelt, you do an awful lot of complaining that a hammer is the wrong tool for the job. Especially when everyone else can see a nail, and you're adamant based upon, I don't know, karmic resonance or something, that this is in fact not a nail but a really smooth-sided screw...
Some convoluted explanation or the other is offered for every phenomenon because that is the only explanation possible given current scientific methods.
No. Because that's the conclusion from an iterative process of inspections, examination, testing and revision. It's not the only possible explanation, but it's the one with the best supporting evidence.
That is then taken as the final word.
No, that's the current best explanation until and unless something comes along which calls it into question. And, to head off your next run, 'what about mystic woo power' doesn't really call it into question.
Consciousness being an emergent property of the brain....is not a good enough explanation.
Not good enough for what? You? Who made you the gatekeeper? If you have a better explanation, bring it, but 'I don't like your explanation', which is your current stance is somehow unacceptable when we throw it back at your explanation of angel go-kart drivers riding around in the back of our spiritual headspace.
NDE's being mere hallucinations generated by a dying brain....is not a good enough explanation.
In what way? Does it fail to follow from established processes? Is it contradicted by the available evidence? Does it fail to explain the full extent of the observed phenomena? Or does it just not have a high enough woo-content for you?
You will say...'Ok...so provide us with the right explanation which can be examined by our scientific methods'. No...the current scientific methods are just not good enough for certain phenomena. A microscope is not suitable to examine everything.
So don't use a microscope. What's the proper tool? We've repeatedly asked you for this alternate methodology that you seem so confident will provide a 'better' explanation, and we're still waiting. If you don't have something, then all your complaints amount to is 'waaahhhh, I want magic....'. Go ask Gandalf.
That is why there is a call among more and more people to overcome this situation...and to develop better and more suitable methods.
Come back when the universe has given you one.
This obviously, cannot happen in a day. It has to evolve and develop over time.
And if and when it does we'll have, potentially, a better explanation. Currently, we don't have that, we just have your recalcitrance around an incredibly successful, reliable, productive methodology that has produced a perfectly servicable explanation for these phenomena that we continue to investigate to gain an even better understanding of.
O.
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Some issues I have with the robot dog (besides not wanting to own one)...
1. The dog merely behaves like a dog. It does not have the same experiences (qualia) as a real dog. It lacks consciousness.
2. The robot dog needs someone to run it. A real dog doesn't need anyone.
3. The robot dog has been developed by intelligent beings....which confirms the fact that intelligent beings are required to create and develop such things. The robot did not get created through random variations and natural selection.
This made me laugh. First two points tell us how different the robot is to a real conscious dog, somewhat undermines the third point that tries to infer that they both require intelligence to create them.
That's before we get to your usual science-denial. There is endless evidence that dogs (and humans) did indeed come about by random variation and natural selection.
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“Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?” Chalmers wrote. “It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.” Twenty-five years later, we are no closer to understanding why.
Oh wow, he has an argument from incredulity!!! Well why didn't you say so, this changes everything...
O.
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Oh wow, he has an argument from incredulity!!! Well why didn't you say so, this changes everything...
O.
With your string of fallacies you people tie yourselves into so many knots that you can't even think freely anymore... ::) Luckily, the younger generation isn't so constrained.
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You spend half your time fretting about 'why' rather than 'how' when 'why' is often not a relevant question.
Now you seem to be confused about 'what' rather than how - the 'what' of OBE is a perception of being out of one's body - that tells us nothing about how. We are addressing the 'how' - how is it that we perceive that we are outside our body, simply saying it is an OBE tells us nothing about the how.
Yet of course we have a perfectly sensible and evidence based explanation (albeit we still don't know all the details) - a neurological phenomenon. We need nothing more.
'How' is mundane. It is important only for some people. For me, the 'how' holds no interest. I am more interested in the 'why'.
You might think the 'why' is not relevant because it is beyond the scope of your scientific methods.....but for me it is important and represents the intent and purpose behind the world and our lives.
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With your string of fallacies you people tie yourselves into so many knots that you can't even think freely anymore... ::) Luckily, the younger generation isn't so constrained.
OK, Zoomer... I wasn't aware there was an age-based exemption to flawed logic, but hey.
O.
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To assume that the brain for some reason, creates such illusions, is neither simple nor likely to be true.
Have you ever had a dream?
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'How' is mundane. It is important only for some people. For me, the 'how' holds no interest. I am more interested in the 'why'.
You might think the 'why' is not relevant because it is beyond the scope of your scientific methods.....but for me it is important and represents the intent and purpose behind the world and our lives.
If you paid attention to the 'how' you'd come to understand that the 'why' is spurious. This is a typical religious attitude, being disinterested in the actual world around them and, instead, investing all their thinking in some baseless fantasy world beyond this one. If we had more realists and fewer fantasists, we'd have fewer problems in the world, such as climate change.
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If you paid attention to the 'how' you'd come to understand that the 'why' is spurious. This is a typical religious attitude, being disinterested in the actual world around them and, instead, investing all their thinking in some baseless fantasy world beyond this one. If we had more realists and fewer fantasists, we'd have fewer problems in the world, such as climate change.
When you focus on the 'how' the mind automatically becomes microscopic. It becomes Zoom-In and loses the ability to Zoom-out and see the big picture. That is why many science enthusiasts are unable to relate to the 'why' question. Not because it is actually irrelevant, but because they are unable to relate to it and see its relevance.
Climate change is one thing science and technology need to be forever blamed for. Religious activities and spirituality did not lead to climate change. It is selfish greed and short sighted use of science that has resulted in climate change.
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When you focus on the 'how' the mind automatically becomes microscopic. It becomes Zoom-In and loses the ability to Zoom-out and see the big picture. That is why many science enthusiasts are unable to relate to the 'why' question. Not because it is actually irrelevant, but because they are unable to relate to it and see its relevance.
If you understood how complex real world phenomena are, you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss them as 'mere mechanism'. The experience of vision for instance is hugely complex process, but you are happy to hand waive it all away as mere mechanism to preserve a baseless belief that seeing is some part of the fantasy world beyond the material world
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If you understood how complex real world phenomena are, you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss them as 'mere mechanism'. The experience of vision for instance is hugely complex process, but you are happy to hand waive it all away as mere mechanism to preserve a baseless belief that seeing is some part of the fantasy world beyond the material world
Mechanisms are very complex....but they nevertheless arise spontaneously in nature due to the influence of consciousness (not random variations). So, understanding and focusing on consciousness is more meaningful than taking a microscopic view and focusing entirely on mechanisms.
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Climate change is one thing science and technology need to be forever blamed for. Religious activities and spirituality did not lead to climate change. It is selfish greed and short sighted use of science that has resulted in climate change.
A significant percentage of the remaining hardcore climate deniers are coming from a religious angle. Typically American evangelicals, they believe humans have been 'placed' in the world and the world was created for us to exploit and they cannot believe the climate is a stochastic geophysical system. And then there are those that believe this world is unimportant, it is the after life which is the real deal. See Mr Burns for details. If we all accepted more of reality and less of fantasy then we would be motivated to better look after this world.
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Mechanisms are very complex....but they nevertheless arise spontaneously in nature due to the influence of consciousness (not random variations). So, understanding and focusing on consciousness is more meaningful than taking a microscopic view and focusing entirely on mechanisms.
In what was does, for instance, consciousness influence complex weather systems?
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In what was does, for instance, consciousness influence complex weather systems?
Consciousness could work at many levels. It could be like computer networks that link different machines and systems at different levels.
Individuals, communities, countries, religions could all be connected through consciousness in various ways. At one level it could be like the internet with global influence.
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Consciousness could work at many levels. It could be like computer networks that link different machines and systems at different levels.
Individuals, communities, countries, religions could all be connected through consciousness in various ways. At one level it could be like the internet with global influence.
You've used 'could' some 4 times in that post, so it reads to me like pure speculation.
No one doubts that consciousness plays a role in the affairs of people, such as the examples in your second para, but I'm struggling to see any basis for a presumption that consciousness is a factor outwith neurology, such as in relation to weather systems.
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Mechanisms are very complex....but they nevertheless arise spontaneously in nature due to the influence of consciousness (not random variations).
I'd like to say 'citation needed' here, but that needs to be a fucking HUGE citation, so...
CITATION NEEDED
O.
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If any of you can demonstrate that a robot dog can get created purely through random variations and NS, I will agree that I have no basis to assume an independent consciousness.
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If any of you can demonstrate that a robot dog can get created purely through random variations and NS, I will agree that I have no basis to assume an independent consciousness.
We can do better than that. Real dogs have arisen through random variations and NS - their ancestors were wolves, and real dogs are way more complex than robot dogs. No consciousness magic was involved in the process.
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If any of you can demonstrate that a robot dog can get created purely through random variations and NS, I will agree that I have no basis to assume an independent consciousness.
That makes no sense, and is a category error: robot dogs contain no biology and are designed and manufactured by people whereas real dogs are biological and were, originally, the consequences of random variations and natural selection (albeit there has been subsequent artificial selection due to the actions of humans).
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Hi everyone,
The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness. Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.
Both the real dog and the robot have evolved from simpler models. The robot obviously has developed due to Consciousness and Intelligence (human) which have directed its development. Assuming a similar pattern (self similarity) for the real dog....there must be Consciousness and Intelligence directing its development also.
You people can keep peddling your random variation story....but it simply doesn't wash. There is direction and objective to evolution. We may not know what the objective is but then, as Donald Hoffman says....we are only shown the interface, not the inner reality. All we can see is the objective of survival and reproduction.
I know you guys will keep asserting that......'there is no objective'....'it is all due to random variation'....and so on. That is your dearly held belief so you are not going to let go so easily. Strong memes!
I am passing time anyway. Maybe all of us are! :)
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The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness.
No.
Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.
Notwithstanding premise one, no again.
Both the real dog and the robot have evolved from simpler models.
No.
The robot obviously has developed due to Consciousness and Intelligence (human) which have directed its development.
Not evolved, but otherwise yes.
Assuming a similar pattern (self similarity) for the real dog....there must be Consciousness and Intelligence directing its development also.
This is a conclusion from your flawed presumption that the robot dog and the real dog are fundamentally similar, which is not the case.
You people can keep peddling your random variation story....but it simply doesn't wash.
The overwhelming majority of scientists, scientific institutions and - given how you like to pitch this as science vs religion sometimes - even the major religions all agree that actually random variation acted upon by natural selection is demonstrably 'the story' here. You can repeatedly tell us that you don't believe, and that's fine, but if the only evidence of an issue here is that you don't believe I'm afraid that's unlikely to be sufficient to convince many people.
There is direction and objective to evolution.
Based on what? What is the direction, what is the objective? How do you know? If there's an objective have we reached it, or what's the ultimate goal?
We may not know what the objective is but then, as Donald Hoffman says....we are only shown the interface, not the inner reality.
If you don't know what the objective is, what makes you so sure there is one? Who set it?
All we can see is the objective of survival and reproduction.
Those are not objectives, those are traits that can be retroactively identified.
I know you guys will keep asserting that......'there is no objective'....'it is all due to random variation'....and so on. That is your dearly held belief so you are not going to let go so easily. Strong memes!
It's not a 'belief', it's a conclusion from the evidence. Your attempt to reduce this to equal levels of unjustified or wrong is partly just a failure to understand science, but mainly a tacit confession that you know you've got diddly squat to support your case and your best bet is to muddy the waters and hope that people think the alternatives are as shoddily put together as your claim - they aren't.
I am passing time anyway. Maybe all of us are! :)
But that's no reason to be gratuitously wrong while you do it, surely.
O.
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Hi everyone,
The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness. Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.
..
That doesn't follow : it is circular thinking. The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs bark, therefore barking must be responsible for the evolution of dogs. Hmmff. A difference between Europeans and East Asians is lactose tolerance. Therefore lactose tolerance must be responsible for the evolution of Europeans. A difference between humans and chimpanzees is our large brains, therefore large brains must be responsible for the evolution of humans.
You've been looking down the wrong end of the telescope for years, it seems, mistaking outcomes for their own origins.
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Hi everyone,
The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness. Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.
Is that what you think? I can think of several others.
Two important ones:
the real dog isn't designed
the robot dog cannot reproduce.
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OBE - out of body experience?
What on earth do you mean by a real OBE - that presupposes that there is something not associated with a neurological phenomenon
Looks more like you presupposing it is associated with a neurological phenomenon. His evidence is of course his apparent empirical observation of his geographical spatio-temporal position. You have to get from that to something going on in his head, convincingly.
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Looks more like you presupposing it is associated with a neurological phenomenon.
More like concluding that it's a neurological phenomenon, based on the extensive evidence that our sensory impressions are the subjective experience of neurological phenomena. In order to presume this was anything else you'd need something to justify the claim that sensory impressions could be arrived at some other way.
His evidence is of course his apparent empirical observation of his geographical spatio-temporal position.
Which is demonstrably unreliable.
You have to get from that to something going on in his head, convincingly.
That's the accumulated history of neurology, pick a page and start reading.
O.
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More like concluding that it's a neurological phenomenon, based on the extensive evidence that our sensory impressions are the subjective experience of neurological phenomena. In order to presume this was anything else you'd need something to justify the claim that sensory impressions could be arrived at some other way.
So what is going on then. That is what we want to know, the process or a synopsis thereof.
''It's a neurological phenomenon'' in your hands i'm afraid sounds more like an '' It's bound to be a neurological phenomenon''
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That's the accumulated history of neurology, pick a page and start reading.
Wait a minute, hasn't the accumulated history of neurology refused to touch this?
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More like concluding that it's a neurological phenomenon, based on the extensive evidence that our sensory impressions are the subjective experience of neurological phenomena. In order to presume this was anything else you'd need something to justify the claim that sensory impressions could be arrived at some other way.
Which is demonstrably unreliable.
That's the accumulated history of neurology, pick a page and start reading.
O.
You have not heard of the 'Hard problem of consciousness' then?
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Wait a minute, hasn't the accumulated history of neurology refused to touch this?
No.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535951/
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You have not heard of the 'Hard problem of consciousness' then?
Yes. The problem is demonstrating HOW consciousness emerges from brain activity - there's still no reason to presume there's any other viable possibility, and the hard problem of consciousness isn't about trying to determine where consciousness comes from.
O.
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Yes. The problem is demonstrating HOW consciousness emerges from brain activity - there's still no reason to presume there's any other viable possibility, and the hard problem of consciousness isn't about trying to determine where consciousness comes from.
O.
No, I think the hard problem of consciousness includes whether your assumption can ever be verified. You are playing down the fact that until a complete explanatory mechanism is found for your assumption your possibility isn't viable.
One problem of course is the definition of consciousness as expressed in the argument ''Has New atheist and fourth Horseman Daniel Dennett explained consciousness or has he merely explained it away?''
Neurology has a bit of a reputation of;''''''''''''''''''''''''''p0 £E$$WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW$k'j;#;;;;;;;;;;###############################################jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjwe33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333i[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefor it's achievements being bigged up.
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No.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535951/
And would you say that these findings do anything to or for your beliefs or world view?
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No, I think the hard problem of consciousness includes whether your assumption can ever be verified.
You keep conflating 'assumptions' and 'conclusions', it's really not that hard to keep track of them.
You are playing down the fact that until a complete explanatory mechanism is found for your assumption your possibility isn't viable.
On the contrary, until a complete explanatory mechanism is found for the provisional conclusion (which may never happen), there are any number of 'viable' possibilities; most of them, though, have absolutely no reason to support them.
One problem of course is the definition of consciousness as expressed in the argument ''Has New atheist and fourth Horseman Daniel Dennett explained consciousness or has he merely explained it away?''
Part of the reason for the lack of an absolute explanation is the lack of an absolute understanding, regardless of which of the viable explanations ends up being the correct one.
Neurology has a bit of a reputation of;''''''''''''''''''''''''''p0 £E$$WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW$k'j;#;;;;;;;;;;###############################################jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjwe33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333i[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefor it's achievements being bigged up.
As opposed to the subtle reticence of New Age woo and religion?
O.
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We can do better than that. Real dogs have arisen through random variations and NS - their ancestors were wolves, and real dogs are way more complex than robot dogs. No consciousness magic was involved in the process.
Therefore.... quite clearly the wide variety of dogs have arisen due to intelligent design....through artificial selection (from wolves). Certainly not random variations.
Consciousness is not magic. It is the source of adaptations and complexity and of all basic instincts of survival and reproduction.
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Therefore.... quite clearly the wide variety of dogs have arisen due to intelligent design....through artificial selection (from wolves). Certainly not random variations.
No, fundamentally wrong again. Entirely from random variation - people do not cause the variations, nor do they limit which ones occur. They select for them by breeding the examples with the variations they like - the selection is 'artificial' rather than natural, but the variation is functionally random. Whether this is a form of intelligent design is debatable, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's what's happened in evolutionary history.
Consciousness is not magic.
We aren't the ones suggesting that it is.
It is the source of adaptations and complexity and of all basic instincts of survival and reproduction.
No. Bacteria adapt and have variations of complexity and survive (or not) and reproduce... is there any basis for a claim that bacteria have a consciousness?
O.
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No. Bacteria adapt and have variations of complexity and survive (or not) and reproduce... is there any basis for a claim that bacteria have a consciousness?
O.
Anything that reacts and responds to the environment through suitable adaptations....is conscious.
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Anything that reacts and responds to the environment through suitable adaptations....is conscious.
I suspect that's not the use of 'consciousness' that everyone else in the conversation is using. My take was more akin to, for instance, the Wikipedia definition of "sentience or awareness of internal and external existence."1
I don't see bacteria as having consciousness to any degree. I'd struggle to say where the dividing line was, it might that all vertebrates have consciousness to some degree, it might be just a few of those, it might be some more intellectually developed invertebrates such as octopuses do... Worms, insects and bacteria, though, no.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness)
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I suspect that's not the use of 'consciousness' that everyone else in the conversation is using. My take was more akin to, for instance, the Wikipedia definition of "sentience or awareness of internal and external existence."1
I don't see bacteria as having consciousness to any degree. I'd struggle to say where the dividing line was, it might that all vertebrates have consciousness to some degree, it might be just a few of those, it might be some more intellectually developed invertebrates such as octopuses do... Worms, insects and bacteria, though, no.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness)
How are you equating 'sentience' with 'awareness of internal and external existence'. Sentience is just about sensing ones environment. All living organisms sense their environment and respond suitably to anything that threatens their existence.
Awareness of internal and external existence is a higher level ability that requires self awareness.
Consciousness is present in all living organisms, including plants and microorganisms.
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How are you equating 'sentience' with 'awareness of internal and external existence'.
If you note, whilst I appreciate that wikipedia is not the foremost of scientific references, it fairly comprehensively demonstrates that this is not me equating those, it's broadly considered to be the definition.
Sentience is just about sensing ones environment.
Is it? According to, again, wikipedia it's "the capacity to be aware of feelings and sensations." which includes that environmental sense, but also a sense of internal activity.
All living organisms sense their environment and respond suitably to anything that threatens their existence.
But do they feel anything in response, and are they aware that there is something there to have those feelings?
Awareness of internal and external existence is a higher level ability that requires self awareness.
Yep. And the consensus seems to be, and certainly my understanding was, that self-awareness was part of the baseline requirement for consciousness.
Consciousness is present in all living organisms, including plants and microorganisms.
If you are to suggest that plants and bacteria have consciousness then you strip the word of any meaningful sense.
O.
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If you note, whilst I appreciate that wikipedia is not the foremost of scientific references, it fairly comprehensively demonstrates that this is not me equating those, it's broadly considered to be the definition.
Is it? According to, again, wikipedia it's "the capacity to be aware of feelings and sensations." which includes that environmental sense, but also a sense of internal activity.
But do they feel anything in response, and are they aware that there is something there to have those feelings?
Yep. And the consensus seems to be, and certainly my understanding was, that self-awareness was part of the baseline requirement for consciousness.
If you are to suggest that plants and bacteria have consciousness then you strip the word of any meaningful sense.
O.
I am surprised (???) you treat consciousness and self awareness as the same thing! Very few organisms are self aware. Mainly humans, with maybe a few other higher order animals. Consciousness on the other hand is a basic property of all living organisms.....including insects, microbes and plants.
Consciousness in plants.....try this.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=13db510d76dc
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“My work is not about metaphors at all,” says Monica Gagliano. “When I talk about learning, I mean learning. When I talk about memory, I mean memory.” Gagliano, an evolutionary ecologist, is talking about plants. She's adopted methods from behavioral experiments used to test animal intelligence and found that plants respond in a similar manner. The results of her research suggest plants might possess intelligence, memory and learning, although the mechanisms at play may be fundamentally different from those of humans and animals.
the scientific community may have to reckon with intelligent organisms independent of the traditional brain and nervous system model. If her interpretation of the data is correct, we may be in the early stages of waking up to a world long-populated by considerably more intelligent, sentient beings than previously acknowledged. It would be a major paradigm shift.
I don't understand why it's so scary. To me, the role of science is to explore, and to explore especially what we don't know. But the reality is that much research in academia tends to explore what we already know because it's safe and in a career sense, it's much easier.
Although in general, scientists don't seem too keen to mingle with the philosophers, so we're missing out on that intellectual space, I think, where frontier thinking of potential possibilities can truly emerge. The little bit that I've combined my work with philosophers has been incredible and has given me a lot of ideas of what I could be looking at when I design my experiments.
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I am surprised (???) you treat consciousness and self awareness as the same thing! Very few organisms are self aware. Mainly humans, with maybe a few other higher order animals. Consciousness on the other hand is a basic property of all living organisms.....including insects, microbes and plants.
Consciousness in plants.....try this.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=13db510d76dc
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Most creatures with a brain have some degree or quality of self awareness. It is simplistic to imagine this is something you either have, or don't have. At its basic level this is what proprioception is; all creatures have to know where they end and the rest of the world begins, where their boundaries are and it is boundaries that define a 'self'
When people talk about 'consciousness in plants' you have to remember they are using the word in a non-conventional way. The generally accepted meaning of the word is (broadly speaking) that mental state which is lost when you fall asleep and regained when you wake up. Clearly plants do not have mental states, they do not have minds. However they do react to their environment in which we we might call 'intelligent' if we indulge the expressive power of language. A phototropic response in a flowering plant for instance would be a deterministic biochemical response to external change; but all the changes that go on in brains are also deterministic biochemical reactions, so there may be some explanatory substrate that is common to both the simple responses of plants and to the neural activity in brains which manifests as what we term 'intelligence' and 'consciousness'.
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the scientific community may have to reckon with intelligent organisms independent of the traditional brain and nervous system model. If her interpretation of the data is correct, we may be in the early stages of waking up to a world long-populated by considerably more intelligent, sentient beings than previously acknowledged. It would be a major paradigm shift.
Never mind the scientific community, what about the vegan/vegetarian community?
Would it sit well with some of them in the knowledge that their revulsion at he thought of killing/eating another sentient being would be directed back at themselves?!
???
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Most creatures with a brain have some degree or quality of self awareness. It is simplistic to imagine this is something you either have, or don't have. At its basic level this is what proprioception is; all creatures have to know where they end and the rest of the world begins, where their boundaries are and it is boundaries that define a 'self'
When people talk about 'consciousness in plants' you have to remember they are using the word in a non-conventional way. The generally accepted meaning of the word is (broadly speaking) that mental state which is lost when you fall asleep and regained when you wake up. Clearly plants do not have mental states, they do not have minds. However they do react to their environment in which we we might call 'intelligent' if we indulge the expressive power of language. A phototropic response in a flowering plant for instance would be a deterministic biochemical response to external change; but all the changes that go on in brains are also deterministic biochemical reactions, so there may be some explanatory substrate that is common to both the simple responses of plants and to the neural activity in brains which manifests as what we term 'intelligence' and 'consciousness'.
One obvious example is an infant. A just born infant or even after a few months....is obviously conscious but is not self aware. He is not even aware that he has hands and legs and a mouth etc. He becomes aware only after about a year or later when he is taught how to use these things.....and when he starts identifying himself in a mirror.
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I am surprised (???) you treat consciousness and self awareness as the same thing!
I'm equally surprised that you seem to think consciousness is broadly synonymous with 'living'.
Very few organisms are self aware. Mainly humans, with maybe a few other higher order animals.
I'm not sure we have a clear idea of how far along the chain of intelligence genuine self-awareness goes, and consciousness goes beyond that. Self-awareness is understanding that there is a self to have the feelings - consciousness is just having the feelings.
Consciousness on the other hand is a basic property of all living organisms.....including insects, microbes and plants. Consciousness in plants.....try this.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=13db510d76dc
I'm aware of Gagliano's work in passing - I confess, I'd forgotten the name - and am firmly in the camp that whilst her results show exactly what she says, her interpretation stretches further than the evidence allows. She demonstrates physiological reactions, and her major study claim failed at large-scale replication.
O.
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An interesting video interview with Giulio Tononi about Consciousness (about 11 minutes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK72pPa_gSE
He speaks very well, clear and authoritative.
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An interesting video interview with Giulio Tononi about Consciousness (about 11 minutes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK72pPa_gSE
He speaks very well, clear and authoritative.
Note that he defines consciousness the same way I do - as that which stops when you go to sleep and restarts when you wake up. No mention of dead people people being able to see and hear perfectly well I'm afraid.
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Note that he defines consciousness the same way I do - as that which stops when you go to sleep and restarts when you wake up. No mention of dead people people being able to see and hear perfectly well I'm afraid.
Yes...he has a very restricted definition of consciousness. He assumes wakefulness as being the entire consciousness. He has left out the unconscious mind and its subtle influences altogether. I am not sure if he realizes that animals and even insects and plants are conscious. But he nevertheless seems to realize that consciousness cannot be understood by merely looking into the brain and he seems to advocate a top down approach...beginning with consciousness and then working out the mechanisms required for it.
'After death' consciousness is something still far away from his scope. He is a scientist after all....and is not involved with dead patients unlike Sam Parnia.
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I am not sure if he realizes that animals and even insects ... are conscious.
Insects are animals Sriram. It is difficult to have a serious conversation when you post stuff which implies you don't even realise that insects are animals.
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Yes...he has a very restricted definition of consciousness. He assumes wakefulness as being the entire consciousness.
It may indeed be the case that he uses a definition of consciousness which is too narrow.
However you do the reverse. As far as I can see you use a definition of conscious which covers any entity that is able to detect and respond to external stimuli. In which case pretty well everything is covered - including my fridge (detects temperature and adjusts accordingly) and my new car, which can even park itself using sensors. So your definition is, frankly, not an accepted one, nor one that is useful in any way as it includes all sorts of inanimate and non living entities that no standard or sensible definition of conscious would include.
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Yes. Attempts to suggest that some universal consciousness is guiding evolution sounds like New Age mysticism to me.
To be fair, the idea probably well predates that. I'd say it was implicit in the ideas of Hegel, Bergson and A.N. Whitehead (which doesn't mean I've got much time for such matters now).
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An interesting new article in BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210831-the-people-who-believe-plants-can-talk
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Currently, there is a debate among people who study plants regarding the extent to which flowers and shrubs can communicate with one another, or other living things. And if they can, does that make them intelligent?
Scientific research is constantly yielding new discoveries about the intricacy of plants and their amazing abilities. There is a possibility that plants may be more complex than some have assumed.
recent research by multiple scientific teams has been revealing an assortment of fascinating insights about plants and sound. Take the 2019 study by a group of researchers in Israel, for instance, which found that plants increase the amount of sugar in their nectar when they are exposed to the sound of a bee buzzing by.
He says that, under a broad definition, plants can be considered intelligent because they clearly respond to stimuli in ways that improve their odds of survival. He likens this to a zebra that runs away from a lion.
Trewavas also points to the fact that trees rely on networks of microbes in the soil to help them locate nutrients – this is a form of communication between species.
"All life is intelligent because if it wasn't, it simply wouldn't be here," Trewavas says. It's certainly thought-provoking. Is survival, by definition, proof of intelligence?
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An interesting new article in BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210831-the-people-who-believe-plants-can-talk
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Currently, there is a debate among people who study plants regarding the extent to which flowers and shrubs can communicate with one another, or other living things. And if they can, does that make them intelligent?
Scientific research is constantly yielding new discoveries about the intricacy of plants and their amazing abilities. There is a possibility that plants may be more complex than some have assumed.
recent research by multiple scientific teams has been revealing an assortment of fascinating insights about plants and sound. Take the 2019 study by a group of researchers in Israel, for instance, which found that plants increase the amount of sugar in their nectar when they are exposed to the sound of a bee buzzing by.
He says that, under a broad definition, plants can be considered intelligent because they clearly respond to stimuli in ways that improve their odds of survival. He likens this to a zebra that runs away from a lion.
Trewavas also points to the fact that trees rely on networks of microbes in the soil to help them locate nutrients – this is a form of communication between species.
"All life is intelligent because if it wasn't, it simply wouldn't be here," Trewavas says. It's certainly thought-provoking. Is survival, by definition, proof of intelligence?
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As far as I can see, that is merely dumbing down the word "intelligent" to the point where it is meaningless. Living things respond to stimuli: that is IIRC one of the "seven characteristics of living things" that I learned in O level biology, forty years ago. It's not a new revelation.
Intelligence is a little bit more than responding to stimuli. Otherwise we would have to describe the lighting circuit in my living room as intelligent.
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As far as I can see, that is merely dumbing down the word "intelligent" to the point where it is meaningless. Living things respond to stimuli: that is IIRC one of the "seven characteristics of living things" that I learned in O level biology, forty years ago. It's not a new revelation.
Intelligence is a little bit more than responding to stimuli. Otherwise we would have to describe the lighting circuit in my living room as intelligent.
I agree - defining either 'intelligence' or 'conscious' in such a broad manner isn't useful if we are then engaging in a philosophical argument about its importance. So as Jeremy implies using your 'catch-all' definitions his lighting circuit, my outside lights, my boiler, my central heating system, my car, my phone etc etc are all intelligent and conscious. That isn't helpful to the discussion and I doubt many people would agree that my outside light (controlled by a motion sensor) is either intelligent, nor conscious.
I think the key to any meaningful definitions, certainly of conscious, is that the entity is self-aware rather than merely mechanistic in having sensors and response elements controlled by those sensing systems.
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Humans who designed the light circuits and are using them for a purpose ....are both conscious and intelligent.
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Humans who designed the light circuits and are using them for a purpose ....are both conscious and intelligent.
Humans are conscious and intelligent (well some are ;)) but that doesn't mean that anything thy've designed is.
And actually the basic physics and chemistry which allows a light circuit to work exists in all sorts of other entities, which similarly alter in their chemical and physical properties in response to stimuli - so for example the generation of charge in clouds and its dissipation as lightning in response to a potential difference between the cloud and the ground. Lightning is neither living nor 'designed' - is lightning conscious and intelligent Sriram as it is based on exactly the same principles as your light circuit.
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There is a purpose and an objective behind circuits. They are used on demand and for a purpose. That indicates consciousness.
Any organism that is responsive and performs certain activities for a purpose (survival or reproduction) is conscious or has consciousness working behind it.
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There is a purpose and an objective behind circuits. They are used on demand and for a purpose. That indicates consciousness.
Not consciousness within the circuit, though, consciousness within the manufacturer.
Any organism that is responsive and performs certain activities for a purpose (survival or reproduction) is conscious or has consciousness working behind it.
No. Some organisms operate purely on automatic responses. If you're going to categorise that as 'consciousness' you've just rendered the term meaningless.
O.
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There is a purpose and an objective behind circuits. They are used on demand and for a purpose. That indicates consciousness.
Nonsense - their use may indicate intelligence and consciousness on the part of the user (or indeed may not), however the circuit per se is not conscious.
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Not consciousness within the circuit, though, consciousness within the manufacturer.
No. Some organisms operate purely on automatic responses. If you're going to categorise that as 'consciousness' you've just rendered the term meaningless.
O.
Yes. There is consciousness behind the design and use of the circuit or machine or whatever. It has a purpose. It is consciousness & intelligence (human) that has developed the machine or circuit and it works on that basis. The basic principle is about an objective because of which the machine exists and works. It also evolves accordingly.
Similarly with organisms.
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Yes. There is consciousness behind the design and use of the circuit or machine or whatever. It has a purpose. It is consciousness & intelligence (human) that has developed the machine or circuit and it works on that basis. The basic principle is about an objective because of which the machine exists and works. It also evolves accordingly.
I'm sorry - you are talking nonsense. There may be consciousness behind the design of a circuit but that doesn't mean that the circuit is, in itself, conscious. It isn't.
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Yes. There is consciousness behind the design and use of the circuit or machine or whatever. It has a purpose. It is consciousness & intelligence (human) that has developed the machine or circuit and it works on that basis. The basic principle is about an objective because of which the machine exists and works. It also evolves accordingly.
Similarly with organisms.
If I put a rock on a sheet of paper to hold it in place there is consciousness behind the 'design', but that doesn't make the rock conscious. Is the rock conscious before I put it on the paper? Is it the paper that adds consciousness to the rock?
O.
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If I put a rock on a sheet of paper to hold it in place there is consciousness behind the 'design', but that doesn't make the rock conscious. Is the rock conscious before I put it on the paper? Is it the paper that adds consciousness to the rock?
O.
Its quite simple. If someone uses a robot to perform a function...there is consciousness behind the robot. There is consciousness using the robot for a purpose...
With biological organisms it is the same thing. Without the consciousness the organism is dead and lifeless like a discarded robot. The difference between a dead organism and a live one is consciousness. Life is consciousness.
Whether you say that the organism is conscious or consciousness is working through the organism....it is the same thing.
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Whether you say that the organism is conscious or consciousness is working through the organism....it is the same thing.
No it isn't. And we aren't talking about 'organisms' we are talking about things which aren't organisms, such as lighting circuits ... or rocks.
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With biological organisms it is the same thing. Without the consciousness the organism is dead and lifeless like a discarded robot. The difference between a dead organism and a live one is consciousness. Life is consciousness.
That is far too broad a definition - there are plenty of living organisms which any sensible definition of consciousness would reject as being conscious. A good example would be bacteria.
If you are simple equating 'living' and 'conscious' then there is no need to have both terms as they would be synonymous.
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Its quite simple. If someone uses a robot to perform a function...there is consciousness behind the robot. There is consciousness using the robot for a purpose...
Nice swerve Sriram - Outrider wasn't talking about robots, but rocks.
Let's try another example:
I, as a conscious human, am walking along a beach. I decide to skim a stone on the sea and select a good one. I throw it and it skips across the water three times then sinks. I am using that stone for a purpose and by your (bonkers) definition that must make the stone conscious. But at what point did it become conscious? Was it when I picked it up, perhaps when I threw it, maybe when I saw it and intended to pick it up to throw. Perhaps when I decided I wanted to skim a stone, but before I'd selected that stone. And what about all the other similar stones on the beach that I didn't pick up. Are they also conscious as I could have selected any of them. And what of the stone I skimmed - does it remain conscious once it has sunk to the bottom of the sea, or does it lose consciousness and if so at what point.
Of course this discussion is complete nonsense as the stone was never conscious and never develops consciousness. I is an object that lacks consciousness that I have used for a purpose.
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There is a purpose and an objective behind circuits. They are used on demand and for a purpose. That indicates consciousness.
But it does not indicate that they are conscious.
Any organism that is responsive and performs certain activities for a purpose (survival or reproduction) is conscious or has consciousness working behind it.
This is clearly not the case. Things can be responsive without being conscious. My thermostat responds to changes in temperature by turning the heating on or off. It is not conscious.
A lot of plants respond to stimuli. For example, their stems mostly grow upwards in response to the direction of gravity. Many of them respond to changes in light by growing so that their leaves face it. A Venus Flytrap responds to insects alighting on its leaves by snapping them shut and trapping the insect. They have no consciousness not were they designed by a conscious entity.
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Plants do have consciousness. That is what the article linked in 109 above discusses. That is what the entire discussion is about.
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Plants do have consciousness.
Not by any reasonable definition of "consciousness".
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Plants do have consciousness. That is what the article linked in 109 above discusses. That is what the entire discussion is about.
So what - just because one (or a few) person argues for an extreme and non-standard definition of consciousness doesn't mean it is accepted. Any standard definition of conscious will not include bacteria, viruses, plants, fungi and primitive animal species, because to do so would require including anything that is simply capable of sensor-reactor processes, which would include vast numbers of completely irrelevant chemical and physical processes. To do so renders the notion of consciousness as completely meaningless if such a broad definition is adopted. And that is why any sensible person will not accept such a broad definition.
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Its quite simple. If someone uses a robot to perform a function...there is consciousness behind the robot. There is consciousness using the robot for a purpose...
Even disregarding the point that I was saying rocks, and not robots, the point still stands - I'm happy to accept that there's a consciousness behind the robot, but that's a vastly different claim to saying there is a consciousness of the robot's own.
With biological organisms it is the same thing.
No, it isn't. We know that robots are manufactured things, we have no evidence to support the notion that biological organisms are a deliberate creation of something.
Without the consciousness the organism is dead and lifeless like a discarded robot.
Robots don't have consciousness or life in the first instance.
The difference between a dead organism and a live one is consciousness. Life is consciousness.
No. Bacteria are alive. Bacteria are not conscious, they have no mechanism by which they could be conscious, there is no nervous system, not neurology, no rationality. Unless you redefine consciousness to a meaningless degree, life and consciousness are not synonymous.
Whether you say that the organism is conscious or consciousness is working through the organism....it is the same thing.
I disagree, but that's an entirely different discussion.
O.
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Consciousness is not just our conscious self awareness and wakefulness.
According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist.... “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.
“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”
Also.....
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
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Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.
when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."
Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide.
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Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide.
Sriram - do you drive?
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Consciousness is not just our conscious self awareness and wakefulness.
According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist.... “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.
“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”
Also.....
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
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Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.
when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."
Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide.
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What point are you trying to make here? That because humans have a part of their mind that they are unaware of, plants must also have a mind? Your logic seems faulty.
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What point are you trying to make here? That because humans have a part of their mind that they are unaware of, plants must also have a mind? Your logic seems faulty.
I know - it is complete nonsense. The functioning of the hugely complex human brain when we are in a subconscious state (such as sleeping) in terms of its level of consciousness and awareness is absolutely nothing like a bacterium, or a plant or a fungus. That's because humans have consciousness (the level of which fluctuates over time), but have consciousness nonetheless. Bacteria, plants and fungi lack consciousness - both when they are awake and when they are asleep - which are also nonsense terms for bacteria, plants and fungi, as sleep in physiological terms is linked to brain/neuronal activities. Plant demonstrate other patterns of varying activity over 24 hour periods, but that isn't sleep as we might recognise it in consciousness terms.
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Consciousness is not just our conscious self awareness and wakefulness.
According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist.... “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.
“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”
Also.....
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
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Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.
when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."
Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide.
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Not from the Alan Burns School of Reality then!?
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It is quite simple and I have discussed this many times....
1. Consciousness is not just wakefulness and self awareness. It also consists of the unconscious mind.
2. We have an unconscious mind that is far more powerful and intricate than the conscious mind that we are normally aware of. Like an iceberg, 90% of our mind is hidden below the surface of our awareness.
3. The unconscious mind is not just a storeroom of repressed memories. It is like a complex workshop. The conscious mind that we are aware of is like a front desk (refer Eagleman).
4. Our unconscious mind takes decisions before the conscious mind is aware of it. Refer Benjamin Libet. Even the placebo effect and our intuitions could be a product of the unconscious mind.
5. Consciousness (not conscious self awareness) is a property of all living things. It is consciousness that makes a living thing different from a non living thing.
6. Consciousness could be ubiquitous according to many philosophers (David Chalmers). We could even have a common consciousness that could be coordinating the entire ecosystem. In fact, some philosophers (and scientists like Donald Hoffman) believe that all space-time is a product of consciousness.
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Sriram, one of the problems with your posts in this thread is that you are using one word consciousness and using it to discuss two different phenomena in the same sentence and expecting the reader to comprehend your meaning. Until you find some alternative terminology which adequately differentiates these phenomena then people reading your contributions will remain confused (to say the least).
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Sriram, one of the problems with your posts in this thread is that you are using one word consciousness and using it to discuss two different phenomena in the same sentence and expecting the reader to comprehend your meaning. Until you find some alternative terminology which adequately differentiates these phenomena then people reading your contributions will remain confused (to say the least).
I am using the words that are generally used by most philosophers and neuroscientists. The word 'Consciousness' is often used to refer to several things such as mind, general awareness, self awareness, the subject, Self, unconscious mind, subconscious mind, common consciousness and so on.
This is probably because consciousness is the most complex phenomena we have.....and we are still not sure how to divide it up and label it. It has so many layers and so many different forms.
Basically we are trying to objectivize something that is the essence of subjectivity.
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It is quite simple and I have discussed this many times....
1. Consciousness is not just wakefulness and self awareness. It also consists of the unconscious mind.
Agreed. But you have to have a mind to have an unconscious mind. Plants and bacteria manifestly do not have minds.
5. Consciousness (not conscious self awareness) is a property of all living things. It is consciousness that makes a living thing different from a non living thing.
No it isn't and no it is not.
6. Consciousness could be ubiquitous according to many philosophers (David Chalmers). We could even have a common consciousness that could be coordinating the entire ecosystem. In fact, some philosophers (and scientists like Donald Hoffman) believe that all space-time is a product of consciousness.
There's no evidence for any of this.
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I am using the words that are generally used by most philosophers and neuroscientists.
You might use the words that most philosophers and neuroscientists use, but you most certainly don't use the definitions of those words that most philosophers and neuroscientists use. And that is the most important point - most philosophers and neuroscientists would find your definitions of consciousness and intelligence to be bizarre, if not, bonkers.
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But we know that born blind people have no evidence of light. In an isolated situation....why and how would they find evidence of light?
No-one can detect neutrinos using their senses, but we know they exist.