Consciousness

[shunyadragon]

I know of at least one philosopher, and one neurologist*, who consider that consciousness may be a fundamental phenomenon. That’s an interesting idea, which I find intuitively persuasive. Consciousness is everything to us, without it we have no knowledge, no experience, in fact we have nothing.

*David Chalmers and Guilio Tononi respectively.

If depends on what you consider fundamental. The assumption that consciousness 'may be in some away fundamental phenomenon' beyond the brain' would be a philosophical/theological subjective assumption beyond the reach of Methodological Naturalism even though a scientist may be one of those proposing this. I consider it a fundamental phenomenon of a natural product of evolution.

The physical evolution of intelligence and consciousness has been demonstrated with the parallel evolution of consciousness and intelligence of the octopus that is unrelated to human evolution.

 

[YmirGF]

The evolution development of intelligence parallels the development of consciousness.

Thank you @shunyadragon for the most evocative statement of the week.

 

[shunyadragon]

You are mistaking correlation for causation, as reductionists and naive materialists so often do. No one is denying that mental states are associated with electric and chemical activity in the brain; this correlation does not prove that qualitative experience originates there, and it most certainly does not suggest that the one can be reduced to the other.

I believe others and you that make similar objections do so based on naive philosophical assumptions 'arguing from vague ignorance' without offering an alternative explanation unless your proposing a theological subjective explanation..

The correlation between the observations concerning consciousness such as Deep and REM sleep is a one on one direct observations repeated many many times.

I disagree. You are making a philosophical subjective assumption that does not offer an alternative hypothesis based on the evidence. The relationship has been repeated shown that there is a direct relationship of causation just as it is done throughout science.

The problem remains of the fact of the lack of an alternate hypothesis that has any explanatory power based on the existing evidence..

 

[shunyadragon]

Thank you @shunyadragon for the most evocative statement of the week.

By the way it also parallels the physical neurological development.

 

[YmirGF]

By the way it also parallels the physical neurological development.

I feel like Mr. Spock, "Fascinating!"

 

[shunyadragon]

You are mistaking correlation for causation, as reductionists and naive materialists so often do. No one is denying that mental states are associated with electric and chemical activity in the brain; this correlation does not prove that qualitative experience originates there, and it most certainly does not suggest that the one can be reduced to the other.

I thought I would add a side note: First science does not 'prove' anything.

 

[cladking]

I know of at least one philosopher, and one neurologist*, who consider that consciousness may be a fundamental phenomenon. That’s an interesting idea, which I find intuitively persuasive. Consciousness is everything to us, without it we have no knowledge, no experience, in fact we have nothing.

*David Chalmers and Guilio Tononi respectively.

Yes!!! In every practical way it is fundamental because consciousness is fundamental to the individual, life, and the body itself. Consciousness doesn't lie only in the brain or only in the entire body; it lies if the very life and behavior of the individual. If a slime mold marks a path or a dog a telephone pole then those marks are a part of that individual's consciousness.

Consciousness doesn't lie in the brain but the eyes, fingers, and ganglia. Even in the "brain" there are parts that have no dirtect experience of consciousness in the way believed by those who think we know what consciousness is. The medulla oblongata has little to do but operate systems and prevent thew relay of impulses to higher brain functions. The amygdala from which our emotions spring isn't really conscious either; it merely assesses our lives and the feedback of those around us. The Wernicke's area would have absolutely nothing to say if it were conscious because it is the entire organism that is conscious and not its parts.

All life is individual and all individuals are entire organisms. This is why phantom pain or phantom itching is the most severe possible. This is why neurological conditions can allow signals to flow backward through the brain stem. This is why numbing ganglia can cause a fundamental change in consciousness more profound than the deepest sleep. This is why placebos are more effective than medication. This is why animals are in tune with consciousness and homo omniscience are not.

If you want to know about consciousness you might get a proper answer faster by learning to talk to rabbit than by consulting any neurologist.

I seriously doubt there are many neuroscientists who think the understand consciousness anyway. They might sound like it when they try to explain their work but most should know better.

 

[cladking]

I missed this. This is a theological assumption without any basis in evidence. If you disagree, please provide a reference with the evidence.

More nonsense.

I don't have to prove a negative.

 

[cladking]

I thought I would add a side note: First science does not 'prove' anything.

But heretics have to prove every negative even when they are more in agreement with peers than you are.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

All new ideas come from individual thought.

Every single one.

Pants are made out of material. All of them.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

But heretics have to prove every negative even when they are more in agreement with peers than you are.

I don't believe you are a heretic.

 

[RestlessSoul]

If depends on what you consider fundamental. The assumption that consciousness 'may be in some away fundamental phenomenon' beyond the brain' would be a philosophical/theological subjective assumption beyond the reach of Methodological Naturalism even though a scientist may be one of those proposing this. I consider it a fundamental phenomenon of a natural product of evolution.

The physical evolution of intelligence and consciousness has been demonstrated with the parallel evolution of consciousness and intelligence of the octopus that is unrelated to human evolution.

Fundamental in the sense of being irreducible. But also in the sense of being a primary principle of reality. Every observation, every idea, intuition and perception, every experiment, every scrap of evidence in support of any theory, emerges within the consciousness of the observer. All of human experience happens there.

You may, incidentally, wish to consider this, from Tomas Hertog’s ‘On the Origin of Time’. Hertog was one of Stephen Hawking’s last collaborators;

In A Brief History of Time, the old, bottom up Hawking famously wrote, “Even if we do find a theory of everything, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations?” The answer of the later, top down Hawking was: observation. We create the universe as much as the universe creates us.

 

[Copernicus]

The real problem in these discussions of consciousness is that it is a relatively undefined term, so it is easy for people to make claims about how little we understand the phenomenon. In fact, it is true that those of us who have never studied the philosophical literature on the subject are ignorant of what is known about it by cognitive scientists and should be wary of making claims about how little or much we do know. I have a great deal of sympathy for shunyadragon's position, because I think that consciousness can only be construed as a physical process, but I also found myself in agreement with many things that cladking said. Perhaps people have been arguing at cross-purposes a little because of how many different ways we can try to define what consciousness is. With that thought in mind, I thought it might be interesting to supply a link to this 2018 Scientific American article:

What Is Consciousness?​

The article is really about two rival approaches to analyzing consciousness from the perspective of a neuroscientist--Global Neuronal Network (GNW) and Integrated Information Theory (IIT). The author favors the latter, but it struck me that he somewhat misunderstood what philosophers such as Daniel Dennett have been saying when they treat consciousness as a kind of "illusion". Here is a short (7 minutes) video of Dennett explaining what he means when he calls consciousness an illusion:

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The real problem in these discussions of consciousness is that it is a relatively undefined term, so it is easy for people to make claims about how little we understand the phenomenon. In fact, it is true that those of us who have never studied the philosophical literature on the subject are ignorant of what is known about it by cognitive scientists and should be wary of making claims about how little or much we do know. I have a great deal of sympathy for shunyadragon's position, because I think that consciousness can only be construed as a physical process, but I also found myself in agreement with many things that cladking said. Perhaps people have been arguing at cross-purposes a little because of how many different ways we can try to define what consciousness is. With that thought in mind, I thought it might be interesting to supply a link to this 2018 Scientific American article:

What Is Consciousness?​

The article is really about two rival approaches to analyzing consciousness from the perspective of a neuroscientist--Global Neuronal Network (GNW) and Integrated Information Theory (IIT). The author favors the latter, but it struck me that he somewhat misunderstood what philosophers such as Daniel Dennett have been saying when they treat consciousness as a kind of "illusion". Here is a short (7 minutes) video of Dennett explaining what he means when he calls consciousness an illusion:

I get the problem of qualia and I lke Dennett's solution.
Now here is the problem that persists in the debate, because of how one cultural version of science colors the understanding of what is real and exists.
Namely that in effect only the objective is real and exists. The problem is that neither real or exists are objective.
In other words, you can do a different version of science that treats the world as in part subjective and objective without claiming real and exists.

So in effect forget things, but rather describe the world as differrent behaviours and how they work. Thus e.g. physical is not a property of things, but a class of behaviours in regards to humans and how they interact with a sub-set of the world.
If you want in philosophy of science, it is to intergrate a pragmatic version of phenomenology and make a model of different experinces and how they work in different relationships.

 

[Copernicus]

I get the problem of qualia and I lke Dennett's solution.
Now here is the problem that persists in the debate, because of how one cultural version of science colors the understanding of what is real and exists.
Namely that in effect only the objective is real and exists. The problem is that neither real or exists are objective.
In other words, you can do a different version of science that treats the world as in part subjective and objective without claiming real and exists.

I don't agree. The subjective exists and is even more real than your "objective", because everything we know about reality is a perceptual construct determined by the way our physical bodies interact with it. Awareness of one's surroundings is a component of consciousness, as is awareness of one's own body. Every physical object is "aware" in the sense that it interacts with other objects, but what makes it an "object" at all is the manner in which our physical bodies interact with it. Physical objects, however, lack other components of consciousness, which include memory, intention, volition, emotion, etc. Illusions are real perceptual events that have objective consequences. For example, a rainbow is a perceptual illusion created in the mind of a perceiver. It will look different to perceivers in different locations, yet you can photograph a rainbow. That's because the camera itself is a perceiver that can store the information of gleaned from its perspective on the rainbow. IOW, reality itself is a perceptual construct created by physical interactions. When people talk about "objective reality", they tend to think of some kind of ultimate godlike perception of reality that exists independently of human perception, but I would regard that as just another kind of illusion created by perception-based cognition.

So in effect forget things, but rather describe the world as differrent behaviours and how they work. Thus e.g. physical is not a property of things, but a class of behaviours in regards to humans and how they interact with a sub-set of the world.
If you want in philosophy of science, it is to intergrate a pragmatic version of phenomenology and make a model of different experinces and how they work in different relationships.

I don't think that we need to "forget" anything at all, and I think that I am arguing for a pragmatic version of phenomenology. To do what you want, we need to understand and embrace the essential need for illusions. Reality is a perceptual construct built out of these illusions. But consciousness itself includes a lot of functional constructs that go beyond just perception. It depends on mnemonic retention of perceptual associations, bodily sensations, intention, volition, desire, and many other functional aspects of cognition that neural activity gives rise to.

 

[gnostic]

Nonetheless I qualified my argument in animals in general I limited consciousness to animals with a brain and complex nervous system.

yes, and so would I.

There may be proiitive forms of consciousness in lower animals, but I have not dealt with that.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The evolution development of intelligence parallels the development of consciousness.

I am quite sure, you would have to have consciousness, before you can have intelligence.

I would highly doubt that any organism could think, to understand or to reason without consciousness.

I don’t know as much about biology as much I would or should, but over the years I pick up a few things along the way to now.

and that is, all living and cellular life-form required two basic things:

1. to acquire energy in some sorts of ways, to sustain life, eg eating other organisms (eg metabolism of animals), or to sunlight into chemical energy (eg photosynthesis of plants, some algae & some bacteria)
2. to reproduce

both of these processes occurred biologically and chemically.

You don’t need intelligence to either or both of these 2 things (eg plants, bacteria). And you don’t need consciousness too (eg plants, bacteria).

 

[shunyadragon]

yes, and so would I.



Perhaps. Perhaps not.



I am quite sure, you would have to have consciousness, before you can have intelligence.

I would highly doubt that any organism could think, to understand or to reason without consciousness.

I don’t know as much about biology as much I would or should, but over the years I pick up a few things along the way to now.

and that is, all living and cellular life-form required two basic things:

1. to acquire energy in some sorts of ways, to sustain life, eg eating other organisms (eg metabolism of animals), or to sunlight into chemical energy (eg photosynthesis of plants, some algae & some bacteria)
2. to reproduce

both of these processes occurred biologically and chemically.

You don’t need intelligence to either or both of these 2 things (eg plants, bacteria). And you don’t need consciousness too (eg plants, bacteria).

You appear to have a misunderstanding of the scientific view of the evolution of consciousness and intelligence. Conscious did not appear complete and than intelligence. The evolution is progressive with a beginning form of primal consciousness and intelligence, and evolved from primal to complex consciousness in complexity as previously cited. The advanced form of consciousness and intelligence in animals like in mammals and cephlapods like the octopus include dreaming absent on the consciousness and intelligence of lower animals

The question if consciousness pf plants and bacteria is irrelevant, because they of course do not experience. It is the progressive evolution of complexity of the nervous system that result in the progressive evolution of consciousness and intelligence.

 

[cladking]

The question if consciousness pf plants and bacteria is irrelevant, because they of course do not experience. It is the progressive evolution of complexity of the nervous system that result in the progressive evolution of consciousness and intelligence.

So where is your evidence that a toad or a squirrel experience consciousness?

Who is the arbiter of what constitutes consciousness that is as yet undefined?

Do you believe in the magic of Peers? What's the lowest form of life that Peers deem to be conscious now days?

 

[shunyadragon]

So where is your evidence that a toad or a squirrel experience consciousness?

Consciousness evolves from a primitive primal level to the complex consciousness of higher animals such as humans and the octopus. The level of consciousness of frogs is less than squirrels, and the consciousness of squirrels are less than humans and octopus, as determined by actual research into behavior and the development of the nervous system.

It is a given tha tyou reject science and refuse to investigate and understand the scientific literature, therefore your superficial questions are not meaningful.

Who is the arbiter of what constitutes consciousness that is as yet undefined?

The scientific facts of science describe and define the science of consciousness. Science has also described and defined the level of consciousness of animals as the nervous systems evolve from the simple to te complex.

Do you believe in the magic of Peers? What's the lowest form of life that Peers deem to be conscious now days?

IT is those that believe in ancient mythical beliefs without science that believe in the magic of their peers, and reject science as you do.

There is no evidence that the lowest forms of life are 'deemed to possess the consciousness. Nothing in the scientific literature nor what I have cited claims that. Animals have to have a complex nervous system to have even the primal level of consciousness.

Off the will meaningless statements like this reflect your intentional ignorance and failure to read and understand what science actually has determined concerning the nature of consciousness in the higher more evolved forms of life.

 

[cladking]

There is no evidence that the lowest forms of life are 'deemed to possess the consciousness. Nothing in the scientific literature nor what I have cited claims that. Animals have to have a complex nervous system to have even the primal level of consciousness.

I'm just trying to get you to tell me where the cutoff is now days.

When I was a child science held only humans were conscious and most people believed this didn't apply to babies. Over the years more and more creatures have been blessed with this as yet defined condition. So you implied toads are conscious. How about fish? Cockroaches? Gnats? Mites?

Where is the cut off now days?

If you can answer this I have a follow-up question; "Is the same test for consciousness given to every species?". Obviously a ground squirrel might do very poorly on a consciousness test designed for crows. I can't imagine much overlap in the testing for dogs and whales.

You do realize any such testing can also be performed on a single cell slime mold and if a man or a monkey can pass so could it.