Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

[Fudbucker]

This is a good point; it seems to me that the unfalsifiability of the HPC is either deliberately built-in to the whole concept or deliberately ignored by proponents of the idea. I think this is where philosophy demonstrates its uselessness in trying to determine actual answers to reality as we comprehend it; this is the purview of science.




Well, naturally. When you always ask vague and sometimes malformed questions, it's easy to dismiss when people attempt to answer them. It's nothing more than appearing like you're interested in determining facts about reality but would rather keep your beliefs protected and intact.

Wondering how brains produce conscious experience is a "malformed question"? Is that really your claim?

 

[surreptitious57]

How did you learn you had consciousness? I would say the same way you learned other people are conscious beings

I know I have consciousness because I can experience it. I do not know others have consciousness because I cannot experience it
I think they have it but I cannot be absolutely certain. Knowing something is true and thinking something is true are not the same

 

[LarryS]

How did you learn you had counciousness? I would say the same way you learned other people are councious beings, you observed behaviour just happens that for at least a little while longer one set of observations of behaviour are limited to being "private".

it's not accurate to ask how one knows one 'has' consciousness as consciousness is not a property or an object, one is consciousness as 'being present and being aware'

 

[Fudbucker]

I know I have consciousness because I can experience it. I do not know others have consciousness because I cannot experience it
I think they have it but I cannot be absolutely certain. Knowing something is true and thinking something is true are not the same

Indeed, it is impossible for me to access your subjective experiences, if they exist at all. What is it like to be a bat? We will never know. I assume you're conscious, just as I assume the future will resemble the past, but I can't prove it.

 

[IanS]

. I only know for certain that I have conscious experience.

How do you know that you have any such "conscious experience"? What do you actually mean when you say you have an "experience" of any such thing? ... describe what is happening when you have the "experience" ... do you "see" it? ... "feel" it? ... "hear" it" ... " smell" it? ...

... it's a simple question, and not a trick question - just tell us please what you mean by saying you "experience" it (anything).

 

[baron]

It's my conclusion, pending evidence of their existence.



You're missing the point. You can define something to necessarily exist but definitions don't change reality.



What in the blazes are you talking about? If we detected them then they are detectable.

Well we hadn't detected them before they were detected, had we? Humankind has 250,000 years of history before we detected subatomic particles. 2500 years ago Leucippus predicted that atom. Does that mean that atom was magic for 2400 years, or does it mean it was just something that we were unaware of?

If the only way such a thing as a conscious field could exist is magic, is dark matter and dark energy magic?

They can think about it all they want.

???

There are scientists who believe in fairies, too.

I'm glad you admit scientists, and therefore science, are not infallible.

Ok but that's not what you said earlier. You said they weren't theoretically detectable. What you meant was that they are theoretically detectable but not practically detectable at this time.

No, I mean what I said. They are not detectable even in theory. Later we might develop a theory, or we might not; right now we don't have one.

Ok, then: how could you detect them?

Detect what? I've lost track of what 'they' are. Qualia? Obviously I've no idea.

 

[Fudbucker]

How do you know that you have any such "conscious experience"? What do you actually mean when you say you have an "experience" of any such thing? ... describe what is happening when you have the "experience" ... do you "see" it? ... "feel" it? ... "hear" it" ... " smell" it? ...

... it's a simple question, and not a trick question - just tell us please what you mean by saying you "experience" it (anything).

If your tactic is to doubt you're conscious, you might as well throw in the towel. it is the one thing I am incapable of doubting.

 

[ynot]

I know I have consciousness because I can experience it. I do not know others have consciousness because I cannot experience it
I think they have it but I cannot be absolutely certain. Knowing something is true and thinking something is true are not the same

If we can't know when others are conscious or unconscious I wonder how surgeons know when to start cutting?

Hint - Consciousness/unconsciousness in others doesn't have to be directly experienced, it can be indirectly observed (seems to work okay for surgeons).

 

[baron]

If your tactic is to doubt you're conscious, you might as well throw in the towel. it is the one thing I am incapable of doubting.

Indeed, it's impossible to believe consciousness isn't the most blatantly obvious thing in everybody's existence.

But since the question is asked, these people need to look up 'blindsight'.

A person with blind sight will be consciously blind, but will react to objects exactly as if they can see. So they can navigate a room and pick up a cup but they do it unconsciously. If asked how they managed to do all this whilst blind they will invent often invent an excuse or contrived account of how their movements came about. Consciously they see nothing, unconsciously they see as well as anyone else.

 

[ynot]

Indeed, it's impossible to believe consciousness isn't the most blatantly obvious thing in everybody's existence.

But since the question is asked, these people need to look up 'blindsight'.

A person with blind sight will be consciously blind, but will react to objects exactly as if they can see. So they can navigate a room and pick up a cup but they do it unconsciously. If asked how they managed to do all this whilst blind they will invent often invent an excuse or contrived account of how their movements came about. Consciously they see nothing, unconsciously they see as well as anyone else.

What a load of crap! There's nothing unconscious about consciously navigating a room and picking up a cup using senses other than sight (in case you've forgotten - taste, touch, smell, and sound). There's also the memory of having navigated the room before (if they did). Some sure do hate things to be simple and normal.

 

[Fudbucker]

If we can't know when others are conscious or unconscious I wonder how surgeons know when to start cutting?

Hint - Consciousness/unconsciousness in others doesn't have to be directly experienced, it can be indirectly observed (seems to work okay for surgeons).

In other words, it can be inferred. Nobody is saying it can't. What some of us are saying is it is impossible to know for sure whether someone is conscious, and what their subjective experiences are like.

My mental states are a black box to you. You will never know what my experiences are like. They are, in principle, unknowable to anyone but myself. My experiences are like other universes that are causally disconnected from us: they may exist, we may have good reasons to infer they exist, but we'll never know for certain.

I bet, in a million years, whatever humans have become, they'll still be arguing about this.

 

[baron]

What a load of crap! There's nothing unconscious about consciously navigating a room and picking up a cup using senses other than sight (in case you've forgotten - taste, touch, smell, and sound). Some sure do hate things to be simple and normal.

Right-O. Blind sight is an long-established scientific and medical phenomenon and is not disputed. I'm surprised that you've never heard of it as it's in probably every book on neurology out there. Actually, that will be why you've never heard of it, right?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

What a load of crap! There's nothing unconscious about consciously navigating a room ...

Couldn't be bothered to actually look it up? They don't navigate consciously, they navigate unconsciously. That's the whole freaking point of bringing it up.

 

[baron]

Here's some crap (as defined by Ynot's expertise in the area) regarding a scientific study on blind sight

In 2003, a patient known as TN lost use of his primary visual cortex, area V1. He had two successive strokes, which knocked out the region in both his left and right hemisphere. After his strokes, ordinary tests of TN's sight turned up nothing. He could not even detect large objects moving right in front of his eyes. Researchers eventually began to notice that TN exhibited signs of blindsight and in 2008 decided to test their theory. They took TN into a hallway and asked him to walk through it without using the cane he always carried after having the strokes. TN was not aware at the time, but the researchers had placed various obstacles in the hallway to test if he could avoid them without conscious use of his sight. To the researchers' delight, he moved around every obstacle with ease, at one point even pressing himself up against the wall to squeeze past a trashcan placed in his way. After navigating through the hallway, TN reported that he was just walking the way he wanted to, not because he knew anything was there. (de Gelder, 2008)

 

[surreptitious57]

How do you know that you have any such conscious experience

I know I do because I am a biological life form with sense organs and an independent functioning brain
Everything I know or experience is processed by it. Without it I could not know or experience anything

 

[surreptitious57]

We have tools that can actually tell which part of your brain is working when you are conscious of something

No machine can perfectly replicate telepathy. If it could then lie detectors would be infallible. Now the only way that you could possibly
know what I am thinking is if I actually tell you. However you would have absolutely no idea whether or not I was telling you the truth

 

[ynot]

Right-O. Blind sight is an long-established scientific and medical phenomenon and is not disputed. I'm surprised that you've never heard of it as it's in probably every book on neurology out there. Actually, that will be why you've never heard of it, right?

Mea culpa - Sorry about that. An unfortunate case of a rushed, emotional, knee-jerk response and engaging fingers on keys before the brain. My Bad. Sad thing is I didn’t even need to look it up as I already knew something about it (very basic).

 

[surreptitious57]

If they are not magical then they are emergent properties and can by definition be detected

Not necessarily for just because something exists does not mean that it is capable of detection

 

[baron]

Mea culpa - Sorry about that. An unfortunate case of a rushed, emotional, knee-jerk response and engaging fingers on keys before the brain. My Bad. Sad thing is I didn’t even need to look it up as I already knew something about it (very basic).

No worries. Blind sight gives a scientific and clear illustration of the difference between perception and conscious perception. There are numerous other cognitive conditions that are similarly relevant, Oliver Sacks is a good place to start.

 

[Belz...]

I'm made that point repeatedly. Since materialism leads to an absurdity like the above, it fails as a theory.

It managed to bring us to the moon and produce the very machine you're using to post your nonsense. Perhaps you should have a bit more respect for it.