Any Arguments by which to Conclude that Consciousness Is a Product of Brains?

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

The clumsy Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this") denotes the fallacy of inferring causation from correlation. I am unsure if such fallacious reasoning is the primary method by which people infer that something in brains produces consciousness. In any case, there is no need to bother with that kind of argument here.

It would seem that one really needs to be able to argue that the properties of brain components or processes logically give rise to mental phenomena (self-consciousness, free will, beliefs, etc.). But it also seems that we already know that they don't--e.g., there is just no amount or complexity of neuronal electrical activity that logically produces mental phenomena.

So what are any arguments that something in the brain produces consciousness?

Is there any logical or empirical reason to dispute that consciousness is a fundamental phenomenon (like energy)?

It goes like this:

If consciousness is not produced by the brain, then it most likely exists beyond our lifetimes.
This would mean that religious issues are valid, so either we are judged by karma or God.
But seeing as though the ego wants to get away with exploiting people and denying conscience,
it is better to believe that consciousness dies with the brain.

This also has a seemingly fail-safe option, in that if there is a judgement-day, then the ego
can just claim that it is the biology text-books that are actually to blame for telling
one to behave like and animal...

 

[Nous]

The idea that to avoid infinite regress we need to invoke an infinite consciousness - that is more more "fundamentally mysterious" because (a) if its true (and it might be) it is entirely beyond any possibility of explanation and (b) it itself is, of necessity, every bit as infinite as the infinite regress of causality that we are seeking to avoid by its means. IMO (which differs from almost all 'mainstream ideas) is that infinite regress is the least problematic 'explanation' for the existence of the universe (although, you are correct in the sense that this means 'existence' itself is 'fundamentally mysterious', none of the actual causes of any observed reality are)

Obviously there is no logical problem with the existence of a phenomenon that is neither created nor destroyed by other events or phenomena within the system. Energy provides the perfect example. Contrary to being “fundamentally mysterious,” the concept of energy solved the problems of thermodynamics and mechanics. The conservation of energy is one of the most important factors in the development of further hypotheses and theories in physics, and the law of conservation of energy is proven by Noether's theorem.

Give me one example in which consciousness has been observed in the absence of a brain.

Give me one example in which consciousness has been observed being created in a brain.

"Statistics show"? Where? What were the assumptions?

What you have called a "correlation of data" is merely your belief despite the evidence to the contrary. You haven't accounted for the many documented instances of people having complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, use of logical thought processes and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective during clinical death. You haven't accounted for the evidence of anomalous cognition noted above.

Seriously? I'm sorry Nous - I am not going to waste a lot of time on this - 1 out of every 1 human eventually dies and consciousness ceases.

So do you just deny that cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy? There is a 100% correlation between TV shows on a CRT TV and the presence of a working electron gun. Therefore, TV shows on CRT TVs are produced by electron guns.

Obviously one needs something else than a mere correlation in order to infer a cause. You're regurgitating "arguments" that have already been shown to be fallacious.

That a few have extraordinary experiences which the brain interprets as "out of body" or "death" experiences does not change the fact that these are functions of the brain.

So you are unable to account for the complex, coherent experiences, formation of memory, logical thought processes, and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective (such as those of Pam Reynolds and Dr. Rudy's patient) that occur during clinical death (or otherwise when people were unable to see with their eyes)?

If these are real experiences of consciousness that happen without the assistance of a functioning brain, how does the 'memory' of them get into the brain when they are revived?

See Professor Forsdyke's articles in the third OP here: Do Realistic Interpretations of NDEs Imply Violation of the Laws of Physics? He concludes that “the scope of possible explanations [for the fact that 'human brain size does not scale to its information content'] should not exclude extracorporeal information storage.”

 

[Nous]

What you agreed with was the fact that we "experience" after actually receiving the data, pointing to the very idea that conciseness, and went into more detail about it, is built on memory, ie we are conscious of a memory not of reality itself. That is also evidence that being aware of anything hinges on interaction that is processed in the brain.
Temporal Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The reason you are unable to find any statement in the peer-reviewed literature to the effect that "consciousness is built out of memory" is because it isn't there. You're misconstruing the facts about the acknowledged "lag" between, say, seeing something (e.g., a light flash) and being able to report it.

And for the umpteenth time, even if your premises and conclusion were true, it isn't an argument that conclude that consciousness is a product of something happening in brains.

 

[Nous]

It goes like this:

If consciousness is not produced by the brain, then it most likely exists beyond our lifetimes.
This would mean that religious issues are valid, so either we are judged by karma or God.
But seeing as though the ego wants to get away with exploiting people and denying conscience,
it is better to believe that consciousness dies with the brain.

I find that explanation a little too cynical--even though it may be true in some cases.

If you notice Professor Carroll's statements on the Intelligence Squared debate (Do Realistic Interpretations of NDEs Imply Violation of the Laws of Physics?), he obviously believes that any suggestion that brains do not produce consciousness implies that everything we currently know about physics is wrong. It's a crazy metaphysics. And if you notice on this thread, metaphysics, not facts, is where people begin in trying to answer the OP questions.

 

[idav]

The reason you are unable to find any statement in the peer-reviewed literature to the effect that "consciousness is built out of memory" is because it isn't there. You're misconstruing the facts about the acknowledged "lag" between, say, seeing something (e.g., a light flash) and being able to report it.

And for the umpteenth time, even if your premises and conclusion were true, it isn't an argument that conclude that consciousness is a product of something happening in brains.

So you disagree with the Stanford Encyclopedia I referenced which was backing up what I said. There is plenty of evidence of appealing to consciousness as memory dependent according to the article I cited and anti-realists do have splaining to do and can't just hide behind begging the question type arguments. You can just dismiss everything and stick to your feelings about what NDE's are but I cited plenty of evidence to support my claims. Some claim the evidence is up to interpretation but I don't agree, seems pretty obvious and straight forward to me. What the heck else you think the brain is doing, just sitting there? Even in idealism, brain is still very much needed for human consciousness, there is no dismissing what the brain actually does. You scan the brain during NDE's guess what, brain is doing stuff. Brain death doesn't occur until actual death and people who are near death don't experience brain death.

 

[Nous]

So you disagree with the Stanford Encyclopedia I referenced which was backing up what I said.

I didn't see any claim or conclusion from any fact noted in the article that even remotely expressed your claim that consciousness is built out of memory, or your premise that "consciousness depends on memory".

Why don't you just quote whatever claim or conclusion from a fact you believe substantiates your premise to be a true proposition?

 

[idav]

I didn't see any claim or conclusion from any fact noted in the article that even remotely expressed your claim that consciousness is built out of memory, or your premise that "consciousness depends on memory".

Why don't you just quote whatever claim or conclusion from a fact you believe substantiates your premise to be a true proposition?

There several ideas that help conclude such a thing.
"In arguing thus Reid is evidently assuming that our direct awareness is incapable of spanning even a brief temporal interval: if it could, we could directly apprehend successions, without relying on memory. His argument for this assumption is succinct, and on the face of it, quite plausible:"

"Arguing that the durationless present of mathematics has no phenomenological reality, Hodgson concludes that so far as our ordinary experience is concerned ‘the whole of it exists in memory "

 

[siti]

So do you just deny that cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy? There is a 100% correlation between TV shows on a CRT TV and the presence of a working electron gun. Therefore, TV shows on CRT TVs are produced by electron guns.

Most of your response seems to deliberately misrepresent what I said, this quote typifies, so I am going to use the same illustration to restate what I am actually saying: give me one example of a TV show appearing on a CRT TV which did not have a functional electron gun.

See? What I am saying is that a brain is a functional necessity for consciousness (or any other conscious creature) just as an electron gun is a functional necessity for the appearance of a TV show on a CRT TV. This is not the same as saying that the existence of the brain is the complete explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness and neither is it saying that the existence of the brain, by itself, necessitates consciousness. So there is no logical fallacy - just a rational interpretation of the observed fact that consciousness has never been observed in the absence of a brain, just as TV shows have never been observed on a CRT TV in the absence of a functional electron gun. I can't think of any way of stating the obvious more clearly.

 

[Nous]

There several ideas that help conclude such a thing.
"In arguing thus Reid is evidently assuming that our direct awareness is incapable of spanning even a brief temporal interval: if it could, we could directly apprehend successions, without relying on memory. His argument for this assumption is succinct, and on the face of it, quite plausible:"

Reid's “cinematic antirealist” hypothesis or "idea" concerning perception of motion does not eliminate awareness or sense perception in the absence memory. Just the contrary. See the underlined below: First “we see the present place of the body;” we are aware of that body. Reid's "idea" does not require memory for us to be aware of that static image of a body.

How plausible is Reid's proposed (precise, philosophical) delineation of the respective provinces of sense and memory? Realists will insist that it is questionable. To illustrate, consider the case of motion. Reid claims that ‘it is only by the aid of memory that we discern motion, or any succession whatsoever. We see the present place of the body; we remember the successive advance it made to that place: the first can, then, only give us a conception of motion, when joined to the last.’ (ibid. 237) If this is right, then when (say) we see a car turning a corner, all that is ever present in our sensory consciousness is a series of static images, each revealing the car to be at a particular location. The car's motion, to the extent it enters our awareness at all, exists only in memories which accompany these momentary perceptions. But from a phenomenological standpoint at least, this does not ring true. The phenomenal character (the ‘what it's like-ness’) of actually seeing a car turn a corner, and remembering (via recollected visual images) seeing an otherwise similar car turn a corner are very different indeed. Not to dwell too long on the obvious: in the perceptual case the car is clear, vivid and (seemingly) out there in the world, whereas the remembered car is far less clear and vivid, and very definitely in here (in the head, rather than out in the world). If the car's motion is something we perceive, and it certainly seems to be, Reid's antirealist analysis is lacking in plausibility.

In fact, the antirealist's predicament may well be more serious still. Conflating perceived motion with remembered motion is one thing, but there is an important sense in which the antirealist is not in a position to appeal to memories of motion either. A memory-replay of a prior perceiving of motion is itself a process which unfolds over time, and – on the face of it – has a dynamic character: e.g., you see (albeit in your mind's eye) the car sweeping round the corner. Since it would be odd to hold that motion can be remembered but not perceived, the antirealist will presumably want to analyse both forms of experience in the same sort of way. Accordingly, your visual remembering (or replay) of the car's turning the corner will take the form of a series of static memory- images of the car at particular locations, and each of these images (save the first) will be accompanied by other static images, in the form of snapshot-like memories of the car as seen at still earlier locations. Antirealism in this form may be a more consistent doctrine, but the wholesale elimination (or reduction) of the moving to the motion-free has two consequences. First of all, it is by no means obvious how our memories could have the dynamic character they seem to possess if they consisted of nothing but still images piled on top of other still images. Second, and for present purposes more importantly, the Reid-style antirealist's account of perceived motion is significantly weakened. Realists will argue that it is not very plausible to analyse the perceived motion in terms of momentary motion-free perceptual experiences accompanied memories of motion, but it is significantly less plausible if the relevant memories, rather than being truly dynamic, are themselves composed of entirely static images.​

Temporal Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

"Arguing that the durationless present of mathematics has no phenomenological reality, Hodgson concludes that so far as our ordinary experience is concerned ‘the whole of it exists in memory "

I didn't get to Hodgson's "idea" yet. Is there any evidence to conclude that all other "ideas" have been eliminated and his "idea" is true?

 

[Nous]

Most of your response seems to deliberately misrepresent what I said, this quote typifies, so I am going to use the same illustration to restate what I am actually saying: give me one example of a TV show appearing on a CRT TV which did not have a functional electron gun.

There isn't an example of a TV show appearing on a CRT TV that did not have a functional electron gun. That's the point. There is a perfect 100% correlation between the presence of a functioning electron gun and TV shows on CRT TVs. And from that perfect 100% correlation, one nevertheless cannot conclude that the former creates the latter. It proves that cum hoc ergo propter hoc--which is what you are trying to argue--is a logical fallacy.

What I am saying is that a brain is a functional necessity for consciousness

I know quite well what you're saying. My point is that you are obviously unable to conclude from any fact that "a brain is a functional necessity for consciousness". Not only is your "argument" a logical fallacy, your claim of a 100% correlation is false. You haven't been able to argue that someone who has not had a heart beat or blood pressure for 20 minutes has a functioning brain or that, with his eyes closed, this declared-dead corpse would be able to see by way of his visual cortex what is happening in the room.

 

[siti]

...you are obviously unable to conclude from any fact that "a brain is a functional necessity for consciousness".

Am I? OK...that's settled then!

 

[idav]

Reid's “cinematic antirealist” hypothesis or "idea" concerning perception of motion does not eliminate awareness or sense perception in the absence memory. Just the contrary. See the underlined below: First “we see the present place of the body;” we are aware of that body. Reid's "idea" does not require memory for us to be aware of that static image of a body.

How plausible is Reid's proposed (precise, philosophical) delineation of the respective provinces of sense and memory? Realists will insist that it is questionable. To illustrate, consider the case of motion. Reid claims that ‘it is only by the aid of memory that we discern motion, or any succession whatsoever. We see the present place of the body; we remember the successive advance it made to that place: the first can, then, only give us a conception of motion, when joined to the last.’ (ibid. 237) If this is right, then when (say) we see a car turning a corner, all that is ever present in our sensory consciousness is a series of static images, each revealing the car to be at a particular location. The car's motion, to the extent it enters our awareness at all, exists only in memories which accompany these momentary perceptions. But from a phenomenological standpoint at least, this does not ring true. The phenomenal character (the ‘what it's like-ness’) of actually seeing a car turn a corner, and remembering (via recollected visual images) seeing an otherwise similar car turn a corner are very different indeed. Not to dwell too long on the obvious: in the perceptual case the car is clear, vivid and (seemingly) out there in the world, whereas the remembered car is far less clear and vivid, and very definitely in here (in the head, rather than out in the world). If the car's motion is something we perceive, and it certainly seems to be, Reid's antirealist analysis is lacking in plausibility.

In fact, the antirealist's predicament may well be more serious still. Conflating perceived motion with remembered motion is one thing, but there is an important sense in which the antirealist is not in a position to appeal to memories of motion either. A memory-replay of a prior perceiving of motion is itself a process which unfolds over time, and – on the face of it – has a dynamic character: e.g., you s.ee (albeit in your mind's eye) the car sweeping round the corner. Since it would be odd to hold that motion can be remembered but not perceived, the antirealist will presumably want to analyse both forms of experience in the same sort of way. Accordingly, your visual remembering (or replay) of the car's turning the corner will take the form of a series of static memory- images of the car at particular locations, and each of these images (save the first) will be accompanied by other static images, in the form of snapshot-like memories of the car as seen at still earlier locations. Antirealism in this form may be a more consistent doctrine, but the wholesale elimination (or reduction) of the moving to the motion-free has two consequences. First of all, it is by no means obvious how our memories could have the dynamic character they seem to possess if they consisted of nothing but still images piled on top of other still images. Second, and for present purposes more importantly, the Reid-style antirealist's account of perceived motion is significantly weakened. Realists will argue that it is not very plausible to analyse the perceived motion in terms of momentary motion-free perceptual experiences accompanied memories of motion, but it is significantly less plausible if the relevant memories, rather than being truly dynamic, are themselves composed of entirely static images.​

Temporal Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I didn't get to Hodgson's "idea" yet. Is there any evidence to conclude that all other "ideas" have been eliminated and his "idea" is true?

Oh I'm well aware the first part was an antirealist perception which I found most interesting.

Have all ideas been eliminated? Let me ask you what you think is in control of my posting this and how it is I'm aware of your post. Did I tap into some surreal reality, or is it a matter of perception and memory in being able to respond in the first place? Memory cannot be eliminated and many of those in that article admit the intimacy between perception and memory that it cannot at all easily be dismissed. What can be eliminated is any use of non-physical means of perceiving and processing information. The only "evidence", if you want to call it that, an idealist has is a philosophical proposition with no way to prove something immaterial like a soul, and no evidence as such. There is plenty of evidence how the brain works, but you can't just debunk evidence by saying, no nuh uh, you have to show evidence to the contrary, by all means, where is it.

Lets break it down a little, how do you account for seeing an object without invoking physical responses as the reason. Light hits eye, brain translates the waves and then remembers it. There is hardly any room in there for anything but physical activity. You can't eliminate the brain from the process so what do you make of the brain just some radio transciever as if consciousness is really somewhere outside the body? Where is the evidence for such "ideas".

 

[psychoslice]

Without a brain we wouldn't even be here talking about consciousness.

 

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

I find that explanation a little too cynical--even though it may be true in some cases.

If you notice Professor Carroll's statements on the Intelligence Squared debate (Do Realistic Interpretations of NDEs Imply Violation of the Laws of Physics?), he obviously believes that any suggestion that brains do not produce consciousness implies that everything we currently know about physics is wrong. It's a crazy metaphysics. And if you notice on this thread, metaphysics, not facts, is where people begin in trying to answer the OP questions.

I confess.
My tongue was a little bit in my cheek.
But I think you may find it is true in most cases
that aTheism and biologism are the result of subconscious guilt and cynicism.

But you are correct, it may not be the entire answer.

Still, consider this:
In astrophysics, many times we entertain the notion of 4-d space.
(Not the same as time being the 4th dimension, or space-time either, but actually another dimension of physical space itself)
It started with Edwin Abbott's Flatland in 1884 AD.

Now when we think of 4 dimensions of space,
how can we be containing such an idea in a 3-d brain?
We cannot contain a 3-d object in a 2-d object.

So the brain is thus contained within a 'Soul' which comprises of the mind and the body,
and which consists of more than 3 dimensions of space.

 

[Nous]

...you are obviously unable to conclude from any fact that "a brain is a functional necessity for consciousness".

Am I?

You've had ample opportunity and encouragement to do so, yet you haven't done so.

As noted in the OP, given that it's fallacious to infer causation from correlation, one would presumably need to make the argument from the facts about the properties of brain components. No one here has even attempted that--and, of course, we already know that there is nothing about the properties of biological cells or electricity that logically gives rise to consciousness (intentions, beliefs, unified awareness, free will, etc.).

 

[Nous]

Oh I'm well aware the first part was an antirealist perception which I found most interesting.

Have all ideas been eliminated? Let me ask you what you think is in control of my posting this and how it is I'm aware of your post. Did I tap into some surreal reality, or is it a matter of perception and memory in being able to respond in the first place? Memory cannot be eliminated and many of those in that article admit the intimacy between perception and memory that it cannot at all easily be dismissed. What can be eliminated is any use of non-physical means of perceiving and processing information. The only "evidence", if you want to call it that, an idealist has is a philosophical proposition with no way to prove something immaterial like a soul, and no evidence as such. There is plenty of evidence how the brain works, but you can't just debunk evidence by saying, no nuh uh, you have to show evidence to the contrary, by all means, where is it.

Lets break it down a little, how do you account for seeing an object without invoking physical responses as the reason. Light hits eye, brain translates the waves and then remembers it. There is hardly any room in there for anything but physical activity. You can't eliminate the brain from the process so what do you make of the brain just some radio transciever as if consciousness is really somewhere outside the body? Where is the evidence for such "ideas".

My answers to your questions will not help you to make an argument that concludes that consciousness is a product of something happening in brains.

 

[Nous]

Without a brain we wouldn't even be here talking about consciousness.

And without TV sets we wouldn't even be able to see the "I Love Lucy" show.

Can we get from that fact to the proposition that the "I Love Lucy" show is a product of the internal components of TV sets?

 

[Nous]

Still, consider this:
In astrophysics, many times we entertain the notion of 4-d space.
(Not the same as time being the 4th dimension, or space-time either, but actually another dimension of physical space itself)
It started with Edwin Abbott's Flatland in 1884 AD.

Now when we think of 4 dimensions of space,
how can we be containing such an idea in a 3-d brain?
We cannot contain a 3-d object in a 2-d object.

Excellent point. (I will probably steal it.)

 

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

Excellent point. (I will probably steal it.)

Please feel free to steal it as much as you want.
There is plenty plenty more where that came from
and the more of this I give away, the more I get.

 

[siti]

You've had ample opportunity and encouragement to do so, yet you haven't done so.

As noted in the OP, given that it's fallacious to infer causation from correlation, one would presumably need to make the argument from the facts about the properties of brain components. No one here has even attempted that--and, of course, we already know that there is nothing about the properties of biological cells or electricity that logically gives rise to consciousness (intentions, beliefs, unified awareness, free will, etc.).

Nous - I must admit I am getting a bit p***ed off with this. First the logical fallacy you quoted in the OP does not say that we cannot infer causation from correlation - it merely says that it is inappropriate to assume that because event x always preceded event y that x is the cause of y. So you need to read up on your logic.

Second, how, other than by inference from correlation can causality be determined. If you are denying correlation as the basis for drawing conclusions about causality then we don't know the cause of anything at all. What we do know for certain is that not a single human being who was alive 200 hundred years ago is conscious today. Their brains have stopped functioning and their consciousness has ceased. Anything else we can say about this is speculative.

If you want speculative interpretations about how a physical brain can produce consciousness try Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind or look up Stuart Hameroff's Quantum Consciousness web site. There are interpretations (look up Big Wow and/or Paola Zizzi) that make the entire universe "conscious" in one sense or another and I find these very intriguing but not at all convincing. There are also experimental results that seem to lend support to Penrose and Hameroff's ideas (you can find info about these from Hameroff's site) - not so the notion of universal or cosmic consciousness as far as I know. But the bottom line for me as far as this discussion is concerned - is its all physical (i.e. explainable - at least in principle - by physics) and the conscious functions of human beings arise from human brains (whether or not we understand the exact mechanism by which this happens). Suggesting that this position is not valid because I cannot provide an explanation of that mechanism is disingenuous and hypocritical because there is certainly no way you can explain how consciousness works without a brain.