What If Consciousness Comes First?

[Polymath257]

I will take up your post in detail. But this is what confuses me. On one hand, you say that qualia (experience) is meaningless. Which will mean that the "self awareness is meaningless, since experience of self is the foundation. OTOH, you also say that conscious self is real. How?

What you believe? Why? Do you think that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I", sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love etc.

How? How the the quality-less physical ultimates generate the conscious self and its competence for experience? Please do not just assert. But give a valid mechanism or evidences.

What you mean by saying "Qualia is a meaningless concept? I think this assertion is meaningless.
...

Yes, consciousness is a phenomenon. But I don't think it comes in 'units'. And since qualia are supposed to be those 'units of consciousness', I don't believe in qualia. More specifically, I don't think there is a real distinction between sensation and experience.

I think that focusing on the 'physical parameters' like mass, spin, etc is looking at the process at too low level to make any sense of it. Sort of like trying to understand a thunderstorm by focusing on the quarks and electrons. You won't be able to get a sensible description that way even though the thunderstorm *is* a process of quarks and electrons.

I think consciousness is best understood as patterns of neural fire in response to both internal and external stimuli. And yes, I think the sense of 'I' is a pattern of neural fire. I think the 'feeling' of love is a pattern of neural fire. I think the 'sweetness of sugar' is a pattern of neural fire. And, in many cases, we can point to exactly where in the brain those patterns are operating.

When you say 'quality-less physical ultimates', I have to admit I lose what you are trying to say. Physical things have qualities. Neurons, for example, are excitable, can generate electrical potentials, can emit neurotransmitters, etc. Those are qualities that help to process the information from the senses and from other parts of the brain *and* to stimulate the muscles to actually carry out some behavior. This is how we get 'internal causation': neurons inside the brain stimulate other neurons inside the brain that stimulate muscle cells, which contract.

 

[Polymath257]

The article shows that pleasurable feelings are accompanied with release of dopamine. It could be another chemical 'xyz'. That does not explain who and why perceives happiness?

Yes, it does. The person who has the dopamine released will experience happiness. The reason is that dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter in the areas of the brain mediating happiness.

Further, it seems that you have not grasped my point about unity of apprehension. What has a chemical to do with it? The unity of apprehension is irreducible to manifold brain material and processes. I will repeat the the problem as I see it.

Without the irreducible unity of apprehension, there could be no coherent perception of anything at all, not even the breaks within experience. For example, without an unitive consciousness inking waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of existence, there cannot be an unitive experience of self across these states. It is a unity that cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess an inexplicable prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” woven through all our experiences.

First of all, I think this perception of unity is an illusion. It is, in many ways, simply the brain deciding it 'has it right'. So, like those pictures that can be seen as 3-D if you cross your eyes the right way, you can sometimes feel the 'click' getting it right.

Furthermore, more fundamentally how do you explain that that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I", sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love etc.?

You need to explain and not just assert "Brain does it".

Like I said, the patterns of neural fire carry information. Can you at least agree to this? And what is consciousness except information about 'self', which is a fictional construct?

 

[r2d2009]

Buddhi is intellect

Buddhi (Sanskrit) — developed consciousness of man.

Contrary to jiva, buddhi is the part of the consciousness which is formed and further developed — with the help of the methods of buddhi yoga — in the subtle and subtlest spatial dimensions outside one’s material body.

Buddhi

 

[Workman]

I stood in the middle of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them.
I found all of them have drunk(drank).
[N]one of them did I find thirsty(no work was done).
And my soul(conscious) ached for the children of [humanity], because they are blind in their heart(conscious), and they cannot see(I); for they came into the world empty(unconsciousness), and they also seek(evidence for the unconscious mind) to depart from the world empty.
But now they are drunk(intoxicated/Blind/sleep).
But when they shake off their wine, then they WILL change their mind.

 

[Bear Wild]

The article shows that pleasurable feelings are accompanied with release of dopamine. It could be another chemical 'xyz'. That does not explain who and why perceives happiness?

Further, it seems that you have not grasped my point about unity of apprehension. What has a chemical to do with it? The unity of apprehension is irreducible to manifold brain material and processes. I will repeat the the problem as I see it.

Without the irreducible unity of apprehension, there could be no coherent perception of anything at all, not even the breaks within experience. For example, without an unitive consciousness inking waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of existence, there cannot be an unitive experience of self across these states. It is a unity that cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess an inexplicable prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” woven through all our experiences.

Furthermore, more fundamentally how do you explain that that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I", sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love etc.?

You need to explain and not just assert "Brain does it".

As for an explanation of consciousness, the evidence is accumulating. It has only been recently that neuroscience has begun to answer such questions as consciousness and some of the advancement awaited the understanding that the body and brain are both involved with consciousness. As for a unity of apprehension maybe you can explain that idea better, but as for a unitive experience or unitive consciousness that has only become clear as we have seen the brain and body united nurologically and hormonally. Unitive consciousness beyond the human body makes no sense and has no evidence. I have experienced a unity with the rest of the natural world and a deep connection but the feeling is contained within me.
I have done my best to explain one of the theories called the Default State Model of consciousness. If you want a site to read about it I will be happy to find one.

Neuroscience has made significant advances in our understanding of consciousness which exists in the form of a dynamic architectural structure that is a 3D simulation of the external world called a default space and accomplished through neural oscillations acting in a cooperative and coordinated manner. There is a virtual reality of subjective experience in which temporal and spatial organizations of brain are actively activity working in tandem with the sensory input from the physical world with all of the perceptual information coordinated by the thalamus.

A current model of this is called the Default State Model (DSM) of consciousness in which the input of the body is included in addition to the neuronal cells in an oscillatory ensemble to create a state which we experience as consciousness. The bioelectric operations of the brain are integrated with biologic activities of the body (breathing and heart beat). Thus when we experience consciousness it is not just the brain that is active but a continuous integration of sensory input from all parts of the body including all organs as well as an output in a continuous system.

 

[atanu]

Yes, it does. The person who has the dopamine released will experience happiness. The reason is that dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter in the areas of the brain mediating happiness.

Again and again you assert the same thing. If you feed dopamine to a dead brain/body, there would not be an increase of iota of happiness. There needs to be a cognising subject. And you have not explained, for three years now, how the material entities, defined by measurable parameters, give birth to a cognising subject.

First of all, I think this perception of unity is an illusion. It is, in many ways, simply the brain deciding it 'has it right'. So, like those pictures that can be seen as 3-D if you cross your eyes the right way, you can sometimes feel the 'click' getting it right.

How can you explain perception of unity by equating that with a fragmented material and process? Is there any mechanism?

The irreducible unity of apprehension, without which there will be no perception of anything at all, not even unconscious states within experience. The unity of experience cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess an inexplicable prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” woven through all our experiences.

Like I said, the patterns of neural fire carry information. Can you at least agree to this? And what is consciousness except information about 'self', which is a fictional construct?

A piece of stone also carries information but it is not conscious.
...

In an earlier post you stated that tight correlation and predictability (for example for ‘pain’) is equal to ‘causality’. You implied that correlation and predictability is all that is required.

I thought that it was a tacit acknowledgement that there is the knowledge gap. How material ultimates, characterised by measurable parameters like mass, charge, momentum, etc., give rise to consciousness and mental causality is unknown or unknowable. And you were therefore content with correlation between measurable brain states to qualitative experiential states from pragmatic point of view.

But then you said “Conscious subject is the brain and the experiences are nothing but the happenings in brain”.

This is final conclusion for which there is no evidence, logic, or explanation. Probably, you are confused between reductionism and eliminativism. Or you are riding two horses at same time, without clear understanding of both.

Therefore, I reiterate that mental causation and consciousness are not reducible to materials and their processes, because we cannot functionally define the phenomenal mental causation and/or consciousness. It is impossible to define the inner self awareness in terms of measurable parameters like mass, spin, charge, momentum etc etc. Ha ha. The thought makes me laugh. It is also impossible to functionally define qualitative experiences.

On the other hand, eliminitivism is absurd. My datum is ‘I exist, I see, I know, I feel...’. With that given competence I record some brain parameters and then say “I am an illusion. Brain processes that I see are real.” It is absurd. The premise behind eliminativism is that the consciousness and qualia are representational and therefore illusory. So, how can the observed brain states be objectively correct? It is also plain foolishness to say “Contents of consciousness are vague. Therefore consciousness is illusion.”

Can anyone take Dennett seriously? He is like Trump, popular but trash.

Furthermore. If the brain is ‘me’, then what stops the brain to cry out “ I will live on”, when life-consciousness ebbs away from the body? If brain is ‘I’, then it should not lose possession over the “I” at any time. Does gold ever become non gold? Or if the physical brain was owner of the processes that engendered the ‘I awareness’, then it would perpetuate the inner material processes to keep the ‘I’ living on.

...

 

[Polymath257]

Again and again you assert the same thing. If you feed dopamine to a dead brain/body, there would not be an increase of iota of happiness. There needs to be a cognising subject. And you have not explained, for three years now, how the material entities, defined by measurable parameters, give birth to a cognising subject.

A dead brain does not have active neurons. It is the patterns of neural firing that produce consciousness So, if there is no neural firing, there is no consciousness.

This is like complaining that if you add gasoline to a disassembled car, it won't run. Well, yeah. That doesn't mean the gas isn't crucial for the car to run.

Here's the basic issue: what does it mean to be 'conscious'? How do we test to see if someone else is conscious? Is there a way we can determine this?

From what I can tell, your basic position is that this is unknowable. My position is that it is knowable by watching the behavior.

How can you explain perception of unity by equating that with a fragmented material and process? Is there any mechanism?

Sure. The information processing *that is consciousness* produces a piece of information that says 'this is all one' even if that information is false.

The irreducible unity of apprehension, without which there will be no perception of anything at all, not even unconscious states within experience. The unity of experience cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess an inexplicable prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” woven through all our experiences.

This seems to be massively wrong. Why does unity need to be assembled by a 'still-more-original' faculty? It is an *illusion* that is helpful for internal modeling, nothing else.

A piece of stone also carries information but it is not conscious.
...

Not even close to the amount of information a brain carries. We are talking factors of billions or trillions here.

In an earlier post you stated that tight correlation and predictability (for example for ‘pain’) is equal to ‘causality’. You implied that correlation and predictability is all that is required.

I thought that it was a tacit acknowledgement that there is the knowledge gap. How material ultimates, characterised by measurable parameters like mass, charge, momentum, etc., give rise to consciousness and mental causality is unknown or unknowable. And you were therefore content with correlation between measurable brain states to qualitative experiential states from pragmatic point of view.

No, this is NOT my position. My position is that *every* causal description is, ultimately, simply a correlation between two observables and NOTHING else. So, if we can correlate between brain activities and reports of conscious states, we *have* a causal description of consciousness. That is what a causal description *is*.

But then you said “Conscious subject is the brain and the experiences are nothing but the happenings in brain”.

This is final conclusion for which there is no evidence, logic, or explanation.

No, this is the position supported by every single study of consciousness, of the brain, of how our minds work, etc.

Probably, you are confused between reductionism and eliminativism. Or you are riding two horses at same time, without clear understanding of both.

I am not committed to either. Both have some truth to them. I think that consciousness reduces to patterns of neural fire in the brain. I also think that if we correlate reports of conscious states and those patterns to a fine enough extent, that *is* a causal theory of consciousness: if this pattern happens, then this person *will* be feeling that.

Therefore, I reiterate that mental causation and consciousness are not reducible to materials and their processes, because we cannot functionally define the phenomenal mental causation and/or consciousness.

What does that even mean? If we can point to certain brain activities and correlate them in a fine enough way to reported conscious states, how is that *not* functionally defining the mental causation?

It is impossible to define the inner self awareness in terms of measurable parameters like mass, spin, charge, momentum etc etc. Ha ha. The thought makes me laugh. It is also impossible to functionally define qualitative experiences.

And what makes you so sure of this? I am claiming that we can get to the place that if we know the physical state of the brain over time we can then deduce from this what th person is feeling 'internally'.

The focus on mass, spin, charge, etc seems to be a red-herring simply because even describing how a neuron works at that level is almost impossible. And it is the patterns of neural fire that we are going to be interested in.

On the other hand, eliminitivism is absurd. My datum is ‘I exist, I see, I know, I feel...’. With that given competence I record some brain parameters and then say “I am an illusion. Brain processes that I see are real.” It is absurd. The premise behind eliminativism is that the consciousness and qualia are representational and therefore illusory. So, how can the observed brain states be objectively correct? It is also plain foolishness to say “Contents of consciousness are vague. Therefore consciousness is illusion.”

Why is it so silly to you? I am not saying consciousness as a whole is an illusion. I am saying certain *aspect* of consciousness (like the feeling of unity) are illusory. But *this* we already know. For example, nobody feels a 'hole' in their visual field. It *seems* uninterrupted and smooth. But, in fact, that is an illusion: we have a blind spot that the brain/mind 'papers over' and *interprets* as continuous.

Can anyone take Dennett seriously? He is like Trump, popular but trash.

Well, I take him very seriously. It seems to me that he has thought deeper about consciousness and its nature than most other people.

Furthermore. If the brain is ‘me’, then what stops the brain to cry out “ I will live on”, when life-consciousness ebbs away from the body?

It is the *activity* of the brain that is 'you'. When the brain dies, the chemical reactions for life stop. That means the neurons stop firing. And that means consciousness goes away.

If brain is ‘I’, then it should not lose possession over the “I” at any time. Does gold ever become non gold?

Gold is a chemical element. The brain is not. And consciousness isn't *just* the brain. It is the *patterns of activity* in the brain.

Or if the physical brain was owner of the processes that engendered the ‘I awareness’, then it would perpetuate the inner material processes to keep the ‘I’ living on.
...

Why in the world would you think that? For example, when oxygen is deprived from the brain, there is about 4 minutes of energy reserve (ATP) to drive the neurons. Once that energy reserve is used up, the neurons stop firing (they have no energy to 'reset'). And that means there is no more consciousness.

it seems to me at some places you are confusing 'life' and 'consciousness'. They are very, very different things. Life is a complex collection of chemical reactions driven by, ultimately, the high reactivity of oxygen. Consciousness, on the other hand, is a process in a living brain that is the result of information processing and memory (keeping track of internal state).

 

[paarsurrey]

It is a discussion of how pure consciousness is a mandatory part of existence.

The concept of pure Consciousness comes very close to some attributes of G-d, that we Ahmadiyya peaceful Muslims believe mentioned, as I understand, in the verses of Quran:
[2:256]
Allah — there is no God but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting and All-Sustaining. Slumber seizes Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is he that will intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them; and they encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He pleases. His knowledge extends over the heavens and the earth; and the care of them burdens Him not; and He is the High, the Great.
The Holy Quran - Chapter: 2: Al-Baqarah
Right, please?

Regards

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Consciousness comes first...

 

[Polymath257]

Consciousness comes first...

Sorry, quantum physics does NOT mean that consciousness is required. This sort of 'quantum woo' is way, way too prevalent, but is a false description of quantum mechanics.

To collapse the wave function does NOT require consciousness. it is an effect of *any* detection.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Sorry, quantum physics does NOT mean that consciousness is required. This sort of 'quantum woo' is way, way too prevalent, but is a false description of quantum mechanics.

To collapse the wave function does NOT require consciousness. it is an effect of *any* detection.

We will see what the scientific future reveals, I suspect materialism will go the way of the dinosaurs..

 

[Polymath257]

We will see what the scientific future reveals, I suspect materialism will go the way of the dinosaurs..

Well, that depends a bit on what you mean by the term 'materialism'. If you think of materialism as matter being made of little balls colliding with each other, then materialism is already dead.

But if you accept that quantum particles are ntot even close to being 'classical' particles, and that they have new and different properties than anyone thought of before about a century ago, then materialism is alive and well and fully supported by quantum physics.

if you see materialism as saying that consciousness can be explained by physical processes, then materialism is definitely alive and well.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Well, that depends a bit on what you mean by the term 'materialism'. If you think of materialism as matter being made of little balls colliding with each other, then materialism is already dead.

But if you accept that quantum particles are ntot even close to being 'classical' particles, and that they have new and different properties than anyone thought of before about a century ago, then materialism is alive and well and fully supported by quantum physics.

if you see materialism as saying that consciousness can be explained by physical processes, then materialism is definitely alive and well.

I didn't say materialism is already dead, I said it will be in the future. Woo is in the mind of the beholder depending on the prevalent understanding of the time.

 

[Polymath257]

I didn't say materialism is already dead, I said it will be in the future. Woo is in the mind of the beholder depending on the prevalent understanding of the time.

Good questions to ask anyone who says anything about quantum mechanics: "Have you ever solved a differential equation? Do you know what a self-adjoint operator is?"

if the answer to either question is 'no', then they don't know anything about quantum mechanics. They are simply purveyors of misinformation.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Good questions to ask anyone who says anything about quantum mechanics: "Have you ever solved a differential equation? Do you know what a self-adjoint operator is?"

if the answer to either question is 'no', then they don't know anything about quantum mechanics. They are simply purveyors of misinformation.

You sound like a religious zealot, as though math is able to define reality. Reality is forever on the other side of any symbolic representation of IT.

 

[Polymath257]

You sound like a religious zealot, as though math is able to define reality. Reality is forever on the other side of any symbolic representation of IT.

I'm just saying what it takes to actually know anything about quantum mechanics and the actual working of the universe.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I'm just saying what it takes to actually know anything about quantum mechanics and the actual working of the universe.

The workings of the universe can't ever be known by a mortal mind's imagination.

 

[Polymath257]

The workings of the universe can't ever be known by a mortal mind's imagination.

And yet, we learn more every day. I never said the process will end. But we do know things about the universe as shown by your own use of a computer.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

And yet, we learn more every day. I never said the process will end. But we do know things about the universe as shown by your own use of a computer.

The process of using symbolic representation to try and understand the universe will never reveal true understanding, only the religious traditions hold the key, ie, to go beyond conceptualization to realize reality directly.

 

[atanu]

This is, to me, an interesting Psychology Today piece It is a discussion of how pure consciousness is a mandatory part of existence.

Despite the success of neuroscience in establishing a wide range of correlations between brain processes and conscious experience, there is at least one question about the relationship between the brain and consciousness that continues to appear unanswerable, even in principle. This is the question of why we have conscious experience at all.


The problem is that there could conceivably be brains that perform all the same sensory and decision-making functions as ours but in which there is no conscious experience. That is, there could be brains that react as though sad but that don’t feel sadness, brains that can discriminate between wavelengths of light but that don’t see red or yellow or blue or any other color, brains that direct their bodies to eat certain foods but that don’t taste them. So why is there nevertheless something that it’s like to be us?
...
The issue is that physical properties are by their nature relational, dispositional properties. That is, they describe the way that something is related to other things and/or has the disposition to affect or be affected by those other things. Most notably, physical properties describe the way that something affects an outside observer of that thing. But there is something going on in conscious experience that goes beyond how that conscious experience affects people looking at it from the outside. For this reason, the “what it’s like” to be a conscious mind can’t be described in the purely relational, dispositional terms accessible to science. There’s just no way to get there from here.

This explanatory gap is what is now commonly referred to as the “hard problem” of consciousness...

if the universe is to actually exist, its properties can’t be exclusively relational/dispositional. Something in the universe has to have some kind of quality in and of itself to give all the other relational/dispositional properties any meaning. Something has to get the ball rolling.

That something (at least in our universe) is consciousness.

There is a follow up post to What If Consciousness Comes First? by Sharon Hewitt Rawlette.

How Is Consciousness Related to the Brain?