Consciousness

[Alan Burns]

One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.

Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.

We can all believe in our God given spirit of freedom.

[Roses]

One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.

Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.

We can all believe in our God given spirit of freedom.

The people who wrote the documents making up the Bible had very good imaginations but very little knowledge of the way the body actually works.

[Alan Burns]

The people who wrote the documents making up the Bible had very good imaginations but very little knowledge of the way the body actually works.

Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?

[Roses]

Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?

They don't read like the inspiration of any competent god. If a god is behind its construction, it has made a right hash it.

[Stranger]

One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.

Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.

Good to the the Alan Burns fallacy production system hasn't totally broken down. Nice example of an argumentum ad ignorantiam.

We can all believe in our God given spirit of freedom.

We can all believe in fairies if we want, at least they aren't self-contradictory, unlike your assertions about what "freedom" means.

Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?

The scriptures are an incoherent mess, with no clear message and multiple contradictions. If they are divinely inspired then either god has serious communication problems, or it's one crazy mixed up deity...

..... um..... er......  ...maybe that makes some sense of the world, come to think of it; god is as mad as a bucket full of spiders. 

[Enki]

Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?

Good grief,  I hope not,  else we really are fucked.

[torridon]

Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?

If that were the case then you'd have to accept God the bloodthirsty indiscriminate mass murderer as divinely revealed in many OT scriptures.  I think I would drown in the cognitive dissonance of it all.

[Sebastian Toe]

One thing which we can say for certain:
From among the best scientific minds, there is no agreement on the true nature of human consciousness.

Another thing we can say for certain.
From among the best theological minds, there us no agreement on the true nature of the soul, where it resides, how it connects to our physical bodies, how it makes decisions etc.

Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility of the existence of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture.

Also, there is nothing which can be used to disprove the possibility that conciousness is an emergent property of a physical brain, driven by deterministic principles.

[BeRational]

Can you not accept the possibility that the scriptures were divinely inspired?

Can you accept that they might  not be?

[Sriram]

The idea of consciousness being an emergent property of brain functions...is what is questioned by the Hard problem of consciousness and IIT.

Tononi writes...

"While identifying the “neural correlates of consciousness” is undoubtedly important, it is hard to see how it could ever lead to a satisfactory explanation of what consciousness is and how it comes about."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

[torridon]

The idea of consciousness being an emergent property of brain functions...is what is questioned by the Hard problem of consciousness and IIT.

Tononi writes...

"While identifying the “neural correlates of consciousness” is undoubtedly important, it is hard to see how it could ever lead to a satisfactory explanation of what consciousness is and how it comes about."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Consciousness as we experience it, is something synthesised or procured by brains, which implies there must be something more fundamental for it to emerge from, what that something is, is work in progress.

[Sriram]

Consciousness as we experience it, is something synthesised or procured by brains, which implies there must be something more fundamental for it to emerge from, what that something is, is work in progress.

Consciousness is not something that WE experience. It is not external to us.  WE are consciousness. It is the subjective element in any experience.

The brain obviously has a role in our experiences.

[torridon]

Consciousness is not something that WE experience. It is not external to us.  WE are consciousness. It is the subjective element in any experience.

The brain obviously has a role in our experiences.

Well we don't experience it when we are asleep or under general anaesthetic.  Perhaps we could say the 'conscious self' does not exist whilst 'we' are unconscious.

[Sriram]

Well we don't experience it when we are asleep or under general anaesthetic.  Perhaps we could say the 'conscious self' does not exist whilst 'we' are unconscious.

Consciousness in the sense of wakefulness or sense awareness is switched off when we sleep. But 'we' still exist. 'We' experience deep sleep and nothingness. 'We' wake up having slept well.

The 'We'  is the Self or subjective consciousness that continues to exist... and exits only at death.

[torridon]

Consciousness in the sense of wakefulness or sense awareness is switched off when we sleep. But 'we' still exist. 'We' experience deep sleep and nothingness. 'We' wake up having slept well.

The 'We'  is the Self or subjective consciousness that continues to exist... and exits only at death.

What persists during sleep or unconsciousness is the deeper self, ie your memories, habits, skills etc.  Your conscious self does not exist at this time, it is reconstructed at 'run time', like when your laptop recovers from sleep mode.  It also fires back into life when we dream, there is a sense of 'me' involved in dreams; when the dream ends, the subjective conscious self dissipates back into nothingness again.

[Sriram]

What persists during sleep or unconsciousness is the deeper self, ie your memories, habits, skills etc.  Your conscious self does not exist at this time, it is reconstructed at 'run time', like when your laptop recovers from sleep mode.  It also fires back into life when we dream, there is a sense of 'me' involved in dreams; when the dream ends, the subjective conscious self dissipates back into nothingness again.

The computer does not have any Self. It is just a conduit that passes on experiences to the Self. The self here is the user of the computer. The user does not go out of existence regardless of whether the computer is in sleep mode or work mode.

[torridon]

The computer does not have any Self. It is just a conduit that passes on experiences to the Self. The self here is the user of the computer. The user does not go out of existence regardless of whether the computer is in sleep mode or work mode.

That confuses the analogy.  There is no need to bring in a separate user, otherwise what is the nature and provenance of that extra being ?  Your conscious self is the running of the laptop with everything loaded into memory.  Your unconscious mind is all the stuff resident on hard drives but not currently in working memory at the current moment.

[Sriram]

That confuses the analogy.  There is no need to bring in a separate user, otherwise what is the nature and provenance of that extra being ?  Your conscious self is the running of the laptop with everything loaded into memory.  Your unconscious mind is all the stuff resident on hard drives but not currently in working memory at the current moment.

if the analogy is about a computer......the computer has a hardware, software, electricity and ....a User. Without a User the computer system is purposeless and has no basis to even exist in the first place.  All its features are designed for the user.

[torridon]

That just exemplifies the risk in using computer analogies, it invites spurious duallist teleology. Hedgehogs did not evolve so that they could be inhabited by waiting hedgehog spirits. Rather, the hedgehog's sense of self derives from the hedgehog, not something separate to it.

[Sriram]

That just exemplifies the risk in using computer analogies, it invites spurious duallist teleology. Hedgehogs did not evolve so that they could be inhabited by waiting hedgehog spirits. Rather, the hedgehog's sense of self derives from the hedgehog, not something separate to it.

Hedgehogs are just bodies like the old computers of the 60's and 70's.  The user is what we today call Consciousness.

[jeremyp]

The computer does not have any Self. It is just a conduit that passes on experiences to the Self. The self here is the user of the computer. The user does not go out of existence regardless of whether the computer is in sleep mode or work mode.

I note we are in "Science and Technology". Have you got any scientific evidence that this "user" exists?

If you don't, we should probably move this thread to one of the Religion and Ethics topics.

[Alan Burns]

I note we are in "Science and Technology". Have you got any scientific evidence that this "user" exists?

If you don't, we should probably move this thread to one of the Religion and Ethics topics.

The "user" in this analogy is whatever comprises conscious awareness.
The output or functionality of any computer activity has no meaning or purpose outside the conscious awareness of the user.
I believe the subject of this thread is a contemplation of the nature and origin consciousness and how it can relate with current knowledge of science and technology.
To date, we have no valid evidence that consciousness can be defined within our current knowledge of science.
All examples of emergent properties arising from complex interactions of material elements comprise functions or patterns that can be perceived and verified to be generated purely from material reactions.  Such verification does not exist with consciousness because we do not know what comprises consciousness.  All we have is some form of correlation with neurological brain activity, but this alone does not explain what consciousness is or how consciousness works.

[jeremyp]

The "user" in this analogy is whatever comprises conscious awareness.

I'm fully aware of what the "user" denotes. My point is that this user has been asserted to exist, but since this is the science topic, the provision of scientific evidence for the assertion is paramount.

So far, all you and Sriram have come up with is guesses, which is fine. The next step is to think of ways of verifying the guesses by testing them in the real world. I don't see any evidence of you or Sriram doing that.

[Sriram]

I'm fully aware of what the "user" denotes. My point is that this user has been asserted to exist, but since this is the science topic, the provision of scientific evidence for the assertion is paramount.

So far, all you and Sriram have come up with is guesses, which is fine. The next step is to think of ways of verifying the guesses by testing them in the real world. I don't see any evidence of you or Sriram doing that.

The Self (Consciousness) exists and we all know that. That is what I call the 'User'.   The 'scientific' claim is that Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

I have already provided David Chalmer's and Tononi's views in the matter. 

[torridon]

The Self (Consciousness) exists and we all know that. That is what I call the 'User'.   The 'scientific' claim is that Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

I have already provided David Chalmer's and Tononi's views in the matter.

You merely provided a quote from Tononi to the effect that neural correlates may be insufficient (alone) to form a full explanation of consciousness.  Fair enough.   That doesn't mean he would support your dualist interpretation. As far as I understand neither Tononi nor Chalmers (nor Hoffman) are dualists.