What If Consciousness Comes First?

[Polymath257]

No, it is not, but a brain is necessary, but not sufficient for information.
So read these words: Information theory studies the quantification, storage, and communication of information.
They require brains or computers. Computers being like brains, in that they process information. Without a process in a brain or computer there is no information. Information is a process about something.
You focus on "about something". I get that, but it is a process about something, not just something. Information is a relationship and you focus on one part of it. I am just saying there are 2 parts in a relationship.

I disagree, again, the information is there in the dinosaur bone. It has not yet been communicated, but the information itself is there. It is stored.

This is similar to their being information on a computer hard drive even if it is never accessed. The information is there.

But, thank you forring that computers are like brains. They both process information. So, why is it so unreasonable that computers, like brains, would be able to support consciousness?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I disagree, again, the information is there in the dinosaur bone. It has not yet been communicated, but the information itself is there. It is stored.

This is similar to their being information on a computer hard drive even if it is never accessed. The information is there.

But, thank you forring that computers are like brains. They both process information. So, why is it so unreasonable that computers, like brains, would be able to support consciousness?

It is not.

 

[Polymath257]

It is not.

OK, so that means that consciousness is, ultimately, a physical information processes?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

OK, so that means that consciousness is, ultimately, a physical information processes?

Within a natural viewpoint, yes! Or that computers can have souls!

 

[Howard Is]

Within a natural viewpoint, yes! Or that computers can have souls!

They’ll need a Bill of Rights.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

They’ll need a Bill of Rights.

Yes, and protection against DNAism. That only DNA can have rights.

 

[Howard Is]

Yes, and protection against DNAism. That only DNA can have rights.

You want to set the cows and chickens free ?

If the AIs learn from us, we’ll be run like battery chickens soon. For our own good.

 

[Bear Wild]

Yes, I get all that.
Here is the other side. Take physics and chemistry - there are a lot of theory/laws expressed in formulas and with measurement standards and procedures for how to calibrate an instrument, Where is the theory/law of consciousness as formula and what is consciousness measured in and what consciousness measured in?
Yes, I know, you will know explain all the indirect observations and all that. I get it, but here is the hard problem of consciousness in natural terms and not philosophical terms. We don't have a one to one theory/law of consciousness as how it matches, that people feel conscious at all. Now it means, that what is consciousness as consciousness as such is unknown in natural terms as far as science goes.
That is the hard problem.

I disagree that it is a hard problem. Conscious is the sum of the neural networks from body, subcortical brain and cortex. In this continuously active system the generated activity using past experiences from different parts of the brain mixed with sensory input and the ability to store new learned behavior creates what we experience as consciousness. Again, lesions in different parts of the brain cause different affects on consciousness. Lesion in the brain can affect mood, feelings and changes in perception of ones self. This could only occur if the neurologic network is what creates what we and other animals experience as consciousness. I believe that all of the philosophical rhetoric created the confusion about consciousness which is finally now being understood.

The only other proposal which is even harder to conceive is that consciousness is an entity in itself in which the neurons tap into. This makes no sense because each individual consciousness is particular to that organism. Only idea left

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I disagree that it is a hard problem. Conscious is the sum of the neural networks from body, subcortical brain and cortex. In this continuously active system the generated activity using past experiences from different parts of the brain mixed with sensory input and the ability to store new learned behavior creates what we experience as consciousness. Again, lesions in different parts of the brain cause different affects on consciousness. Lesion in the brain can affect mood, feelings and changes in perception of ones self. This could only occur if the neurologic network is what creates what we and other animals experience as consciousness. I believe that all of the philosophical rhetoric created the confusion about consciousness which is finally now being understood.

The only other proposal which is even harder to conceive is that consciousness is an entity in itself in which the neurons tap into. This makes no sense because each individual consciousness is particular to that organism. Only idea left

There is another, that science can't explain it.

 

[Polymath257]

There is another, that science can't explain it.

OK, we all agree that there is more work to do. But the question is whether there is a 'hard' question concerning consciousness or if the questions remaining are all 'soft' questions of details.

I specifically reject that there is a 'hard' question of consciousness. In particular, I find the concept of a p-zombie to be incoherent and and for such beings to be impossible. I think that consciousness, like every other phenomenon, supervenes on the physical: if we know everything about the physical situation, we will be able to deduce everything about the mental situation.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

OK, we all agree that there is more work to do. But the question is whether there is a 'hard' question concerning consciousness or if the questions remaining are all 'soft' questions of details.

I specifically reject that there is a 'hard' question of consciousness. In particular, I find the concept of a p-zombie to be incoherent and and for such beings to be impossible. I think that consciousness, like every other phenomenon, supervenes on the physical: if we know everything about the physical situation, we will be able to deduce everything about the mental situation.

You are doing philosophy as per the bold.
So let us do philosophy and not science.
If you start be assuming the result and then reject any other possibility, then you are doing what Popper warned against.
So the open approach is not take for granted, that science can't explain everything and ask questions in such a manner, that you allow for the possibility that science can't explain everything.
So you are not doing science, you are doing philosophy if you accept there is no hard problem, before you have checked. Now if we then look closer at what we are in effect doing, then we are doing a version of metaphysics and logic. But there is a yet possibility, that science can't give evidence for the hard problem.
From the Internet:

In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Equivalently, X is said to supervene on Y if and only if X cannot vary unless Y varies.

An emergent property is a property which a collection or complex system has, but which the individual members do not have. A failure to realize that a property is emergent, or supervenient, leads to the fallacy of division.

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own. These properties or behaviors emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.

So emergence and supervenience can't be observed, because you can't observe from the outside consciousness in the brain. It can inferred, but not observed.
Now if you agree with this, we can start debating, what the hard problem is and indeed if it is there or not.

Remember you can't assume beforehand, that there is the answer you want. Nor can I.

 

[Polymath257]

Remember you can't assume beforehand, that there is the answer you want. Nor can I.

Agreed. So, what do you think the 'hard' problem of consciousness is and why do you think it is, in fact, hard and not soft?

The reason I reject there being a hard problem is that I have seen nothing that I consider to be more than a 'soft' problem.

BTW, I disagree that you cannot observe consciousness. In fact, we do so on a regular basis. All we need is the *report* from someone that they are conscious. And that *is* direct evidence of consciousness. We can then correlate those reports with brain states to see what brain states correspond to which conscious states. If we can do that, this is all that is required for a 'theory of consciousness'.

In fact, this is what happens in *every* area of science. We see some phenomenon and correlated its occurrence to some other phenomenon, thereby *postulating* a causal connection. To the extent that this observed correlation is able to make testable predictions, it is science.

So, suppose we solve the 'soft' problem of consciousness: we correlate brain states with *reported* internal states in a way that makes testable predictions both ways. What *else* is required for a full theory of consciousness?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Agreed. So, what do you think the 'hard' problem of consciousness is and why do you think it is, in fact, hard and not soft?

The reason I reject there being a hard problem is that I have seen nothing that I consider to be more than a 'soft' problem.

BTW, I disagree that you cannot observe consciousness. In fact, we do so on a regular basis. All we need is the *report* from someone that they are conscious. And that *is* direct evidence of consciousness. We can then correlate those reports with brain states to see what brain states correspond to which conscious states. If we can do that, this is all that is required for a 'theory of consciousness'.

In fact, this is what happens in *every* area of science. We see some phenomenon and correlated its occurrence to some other phenomenon, thereby *postulating* a causal connection. To the extent that this observed correlation is able to make testable predictions, it is science.

So, suppose we solve the 'soft' problem of consciousness: we correlate brain states with *reported* internal states in a way that makes testable predictions both ways. What *else* is required for a full theory of consciousness?

This will have to wait till tomorrow to do in full, but here is the starting point. It doesn't have to do with consciousness per se. It has to do with objective and subjective experience or if you like external and internal experience. It is problem in epistemology that connects to logic and how brains function differently when being objective and subjective.
So the hard problem is in fact a problem of how knowledge works.

 

[Polymath257]

This will have to wait till tomorrow to do in full, but here is the starting point. It doesn't have to do with consciousness per se. It has to do with objective and subjective experience or if you like external and internal experience. It is problem in epistemology that connects to logic and how brains function differently when being objective and subjective.
So the hard problem is in fact a problem of how knowledge works.

Ahh...so the question of getting out of solipsism? Yes, that is *philosophically* hard, but isn't directly related to the question of consciousness.

For me, that leap is accomplished by the realization that I get surprised. That alone means there is something outside of 'myself'. Once I have that, I look for patterns in my senses, and use those patterns to build testable models (the scientific method). THAT is what *defines* 'external reality'.

Among the things I notice is that there are other beings that speak, move, seem to have intent, etc. And, postulating that they have inner states gives predictions that are testable and repeatable. Hence, I consider other consciousnesses to be proven (to the same degree that any other scientific proposition is proven).

Then, the existence of these other consciousnesses allows me to define *consensus reality* by agreement between those consciousnesses. Those ideas that can be tested and are repeatable by others become 'facts', while those that depend on the person (like whether tomatoes taste good) become 'opinions'.

Finally, I find that their reports of conscious states are correlated to brain states. That gives an even more refined collection of predictions that can be tested and repeated, showing me that consciousness and brain states are equivalent descriptions of the same phenomenon.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Ahh...so the question of getting out of solipsism? Yes, that is *philosophically* hard, but isn't directly related to the question of consciousness.

For me, that leap is accomplished by the realization that I get surprised. That alone means there is something outside of 'myself'. Once I have that, I look for patterns in my senses, and use those patterns to build testable models (the scientific method). THAT is what *defines* 'external reality'.

Among the things I notice is that there are other beings that speak, move, seem to have intent, etc. And, postulating that they have inner states gives predictions that are testable and repeatable. Hence, I consider other consciousnesses to be proven (to the same degree that any other scientific proposition is proven).

Then, the existence of these other consciousnesses allows me to define *consensus reality* by agreement between those consciousnesses. Those ideas that can be tested and are repeatable by others become 'facts', while those that depend on the person (like whether tomatoes taste good) become 'opinions'.

Finally, I find that their reports of conscious states are correlated to brain states. That gives an even more refined collection of predictions that can be tested and repeated, showing me that consciousness and brain states are equivalent descriptions of the same phenomenon.

Okay, I will start with ontological solipsism and connect it to what you wrote. Solipsism fails, because it doesn't account for causality and control. I.e. I exist and all I experience, is mine and I can do everything and control everything in the same manner, because all there is me and my subconscious mind. That is not so and the problem is that everything is not mine. It comes to me.

So here is what I forget in my previous post. You need logic, causality and epistemology combined to get at the hard problem in consciousness and how it is not really about consciousness.
I will do it within methodological naturalism and contrast it to philosophical physicalism.
So now that we got rid of solipsism, let us tackle subjective and objective in regards to causality. Something is subjective if the causality involved runs through a brain and causes further behavior for that human in question. Objective is a causality that comes to the brain. As a slogan - the replication of the fittest gene is what results in subjectivity.
So all causality is not just physical, because some of causality is biological. Of course the biological is connected to the physical, but you can't reduce it so only physical, because then you overlook the difference between objective and subjective.

Do you agree? Any thoughts or counter arguments?

 

[Polymath257]

Okay, I will start with ontological solipsism and connect it to what you wrote. Solipsism fails, because it doesn't account for causality and control. I.e. I exist and all I experience, is mine and I can do everything and control everything in the same manner, because all there is me and my subconscious mind. That is not so and the problem is that everything is not mine. It comes to me.

So here is what I forget in my previous post. You need logic, causality and epistemology combined to get at the hard problem in consciousness and how it is not really about consciousness.
I will do it within methodological naturalism and contrast it to philosophical physicalism.
So now that we got rid of solipsism, let us tackle subjective and objective in regards to causality. Something is subjective if the causality involved runs through a brain and causes further behavior for that human in question. Objective is a causality that comes to the brain. As a slogan - the replication of the fittest gene is what results in subjectivity.
So all causality is not just physical, because some of causality is biological. Of course the biological is connected to the physical, but you can't reduce it so only physical, because then you overlook the difference between objective and subjective.

Do you agree? Any thoughts or counter arguments?

Well, first of all you are assuming causality in all cases, which is invalid (and, truthfully, not even properly defined). We know of events that are uncaused in any traditional sense.

Second, the biological isn't just 'connected' to the physical. It actually *is* physical. Biological entities are made of the same atoms all the rest of the universe is. In fact, they are made from a small subset of them: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, a bit of sulphur, and a few trace elements.

So, yes, you *can* reduce it to 'only physical' because it is, in fact, only physical. As far as I can see, the objective/subjective distinction doesn't affect that at all. So some causal chains go through brains (some actually go through more than one brain, but that is a different issue) and others do not.

But even causal chains that go through brains do not have to be *conscious* at any point. Our brains process quite a lot of information (say, about heart rate, blood pressure, stomach contents, etc) that never make it to consciousness.

 

[atanu]

Well, evidence, but not conclusive evidence. Other patternns of causation need to be considered.

When two types of events are consistently correlated, both in location and time, it is reasonable to conclude that they are simply different aspects of the same phenomenon.

Experience (immeasurable) is a different category than third party brain picture (measurable).

Even if you assert a billion times that a brain picture is the ‘bliss’ or ‘pain’, you will not convey the truth.

There is no experience and experiencer in the brain picture.

In this case, the brain state that is caused by tissue damage *is* the feeling of pain. Every time that brain state occurs, the subject reports pain. If there is tissue damage, but there is an anesthetic, there is no correlate brain state and also no pain.

At some point it becomes silly to say they are even different phenomena.

I have repeated a few times that measurable behaviour can be correlated tightly with certain brain states. Both behaviour and brain states are measurable. In this case, we can easily say that the particular ‘behaviour’ and the corresponding ‘brain picture’ are related causally to a common aspect, if there is a causal explanation.

In case of immeasurable experiences of joy, or pain or sadness there is no explanation. A brain picture has no bliss or pain.

So it is silly of Dennett (and his blind followers) to claim ‘consciousness is an illusion’.

It is actually an imposition of a misplaced philosophical agenda on science. There are almost no scientist who agrees with his brutish assertions, which are foolish.

...

 

[gnostic]

If you start be assuming the result and then reject any other possibility, then you are doing what Popper warned against.
So the open approach is not take for granted, that science can't explain everything and ask questions in such a manner, that you allow for the possibility that science can't explain everything.

Where did you get the bloody stupid idea that science is meant to answer or explain every questions???!!!

Science or on inquiry, investigating and testing the natural or physical world.

It always start with preliminary observation, followed by attempting to explain what had being observed.

Such explanation will attempted to address several key questions, as to WHAT it is, HOW does it work, and if possible, HOW do we make use of such knowledge. This part is the formulation part of the hypothesis (of the scientific method), which may include mathematical model that either represent the nature of phenomena or to serve as a predictive tool for possible ways of could work, that may help with setting up the baseline for testings (eg observation via evidences gathering or controlled environment for experiments).

The testing stage (of the scientific method), is to test evidences gathered and accumulated, or attained data from test results of performed experiments. The evidences or test results would allow the researcher to compared them and analyzed them against the explanation and predictions of the hypothesis.

It is these evidences, test results and data that will determine if the hypothesis is probable true or probable false, or respectively verified/validated or refuted; the conclusion can be only reached if there evidences/data are in sufficient quantities to determine probability.

If the hypothesis survive through falsifiability and scientific method, then it may have chance of passing scrutiny of the Peer Review, and possible elevation of the hypothesis to scientific theory status.

But any falsifiable hypothesis or scientific theory are inerrant or infallible. They can be challenged, changed/updated, or replaced by better alternative hypothesis/theory.

To give you an example. Charles Darwin had proposed the concept of biodiversity over time, through Natural Selection, but his death, the theory of evolution has been corrected and updated by other biologists over the decades and over a century-and-a-half, through the accumulation of more evidences that support the Natural Selection mechanism.

But the theory of evolution, have expanded beyond Darwin’s original, to include other different mechanisms, eg Genetic Drift, Mutation, Gene Flow and Genetic Hitchhiking. Advances in biology have our allow biologists to better understand evolution, such as molecular biology, DNA, the genome project, and for understanding human evolution, the Y chromosome DNA haplogroup and mitochondrial.

All of this, took time, to learn and understand, for technology to catch up and to help biologists and related fields to do their works.

There are still more to learn, therefore, biology don’t know every single things.

I don’t think you understand science as much as you think you do, if you think science is supposed to explain everything.

 

[Bear Wild]

Experience (immeasurable) is a different category than third party brain picture (measurable).

Even if you assert a billion times that a brain picture is the ‘bliss’ or ‘pain’, you will not convey the truth.

There is no experience and experiencer in the brain picture.



I have repeated a few times that measurable behaviour can be correlated tightly with certain brain states. Both behaviour and brain states are measurable. In this case, we can easily say that the particular ‘behaviour’ and the corresponding ‘brain picture’ are related causally to a common aspect, if there is a causal explanation.

In case of immeasurable experiences of joy, or pain or sadness there is no explanation. A brain picture has no bliss or pain.

So it is silly of Dennett (and his blind followers) to claim ‘consciousness is an illusion’.

It is actually an imposition of a misplaced philosophical agenda on science. There are almost no scientist who agrees with his brutish assertions, which are foolish.

...

Dennett makes the same flaw as so many psychologists and philosophers make when comparisons of human compared to the animal world are made. He claims they including our related apes are fundamentally different instead of recognizing that we are similar in kind but not in degree. Despite his acceptance of the neurological basis for consciousness which clearly shows the similarities he creates an unproven gap between animal and humans. That gap has been decreasing as we have increase our ability to test animals in appropriate ways. Ironically he made a similar statement in the way we are gaining on improved testing of the neurological system.

His proposal of illusion is really just the description that our interpretation of what we process as correct is a categorization of what we perceive in terms of how we store information and translate it into words thus being able communicate to others. In my opinion consciousness is a real state of neurological activity and not an illusion but limited in how it then translates what we are experiencing into words. Language is limited and often confuses reality because of its limitations. But, language does allow us to communicate and preserve information outside of the brain. This is what has allowed us to create things as a collective over time.

 

[Polymath257]

Experience (immeasurable) is a different category than third party brain picture (measurable).

But experience *is* measurable: just ask the person what they experienced.

Even if you assert a billion times that a brain picture is the ‘bliss’ or ‘pain’, you will not convey the truth.

There is no experience and experiencer in the brain picture.

Of course there is. The data coming in is being experienced by the brain.

I have repeated a few times that measurable behaviour can be correlated tightly with certain brain states. Both behaviour and brain states are measurable. In this case, we can easily say that the particular ‘behaviour’ and the corresponding ‘brain picture’ are related causally to a common aspect, if there is a causal explanation.

In case of immeasurable experiences of joy, or pain or sadness there is no explanation. A brain picture has no bliss or pain.

There are no pain recpetors in the brain, but the brain 'feels' the painmessage sent to it via the neurons.

So it is silly of Dennett (and his blind followers) to claim ‘consciousness is an illusion’.

It is actually an imposition of a misplaced philosophical agenda on science. There are almost no scientist who agrees with his brutish assertions, which are foolish.

...

Consciousness is a real phenomenon: it is a process in the brain. We have *internal* states because the brain has an internal model of its own state. That is what it means to be subjective.