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

[Cheetah]

I suggest you read the study, and a few others too, because you are failing to understand what is written. Unless you believe that a person driving along a road actually goes blind and cannot consciously see anything whatsoever, then your analogy is false and bears no relation to what is being talked about. We all know information can be processed unconsciously, it happens to all of us all of the time. If this is what blind sight was then it wouldn't be remarkable. It isn't, therefore it is.

It is not an analogy.

Let me try again.

Imagine you are hungry, in your favorite restaurant, your favorite dish in front of you, you put the first bite in your mouth, heaven.
You are so focused on the aromas, texture, taste you don't notice or hear anything else happening around you.
Someone call's your name and snaps you out of the experience, bringing your consciousness back to full reality.
Even though your eyes were open for those few seconds, you did not see, not consciously, the signals from your eyes were coming in and being processed but you weren't aware of them, they didn't even make it into short term memory, you were temporarily blindsighted.
Damn the bastard who distracted you! You tune him out and have a second byte, even better, double heaven.
You lose track of your surroundings again, triple heaven.
Unfortunately the food is so good, you have a little stroke. It's so small you don't even realize it.
Per chance somehow the link between your "consciousness" and your visual cortex or wherever is damaged and when someone calls your name again, you snap out of it, as before, but now you can't find your vision. You can pay attention to all your other senses, but vision is just elusive.
Where before you were temporarily blindsighted, it's now permanent.

That could really happen, it's scary.

 

[baron]

It is not an analogy.

Let me try again.

Imagine you are hungry, in your favorite restaurant, your favorite dish in front of you, you put the first bite in your mouth, heaven.
You are so focused on the aromas, texture, taste you don't notice or hear anything else happening around you.
Someone call's your name and snaps you out of the experience, bringing your consciousness back to full reality.
Even though your eyes were open for those few seconds, you did not see, not consciously, the signals from your eyes were coming in and being processed but you weren't aware of them, they didn't even make it into short term memory, you were temporarily blindsighted.
Damn the bastard who distracted you! You tune him out and have a second byte, even better, double heaven.
You lose track of your surroundings again, triple heaven.
Unfortunately the food is so good, you have a little stroke. It's so small you don't even realize it.
Per chance somehow the link between your "consciousness" and your visual cortex or wherever is damaged and when someone calls your name again, you snap out of it, as before, but now you can't find your vision. You can pay attention to all your other senses, but vision is just elusive.
Where before you were temporarily blindsighted, it's now permanent.

That could really happen, it's scary.

Yes, I get what you're saying but it is not the same. What you're describing is simply zoning out, and it's a natural part of human operation. Without unconscious processing of information you would be dead inside of a minute. Blind sight is different. You can be as consciously focused as you like but you won't see anything. All traditional tests and brain scans will show you to be blind. It's in this way the comparison can be drawn between information processing and consciousness.

 

[Darat]

I'm not. Why don't you just clarify what you said.

ETA: I can also stop using you as an example which might be simpler if you'd prefer that. Since you brought yourself up as an example I assumed you'd be OK with using you as an example.

How clearer can I be? I consider myself conscious but I don't have qualia. Since it was claimed that qualia are necessary for consciousness I am therefore "proof" that even if qualia exist they are not necessary for consciousness.

 

[Darat]

To those who propose something called qualia exist, have you ever had the experience of "redness" without it being tied into perception of something that is red?

 

[baron]

How clearer can I be? I consider myself conscious but I don't have qualia. Since it was claimed that qualia are necessary for consciousness I am therefore "proof" that even if qualia exist they are not necessary for consciousness.

Can you explain how "proof" differs from proof?

To those who propose something called qualia exist, have you ever had the experience of "redness" without it being tied into perception of something that is red?

Of course.

 

[Darat]

Yes, I get what you're saying but it is not the same. What you're describing is simply zoning out, and it's a natural part of human operation. Without unconscious processing of information you would be dead inside of a minute. Blind sight is different. You can be as consciously focused as you like but you won't see anything. All traditional tests and brain scans will show you to be blind. It's in this way the comparison can be drawn between information processing and consciousness.

Example please.

 

[baron]

Example please.

I actually misspoke there, to a small extent. The brain scans showed that there was some low level activity in the brain when images were presented to him, but it was completely unconscious and all other tests showed him to be blind. It was further found he had no functioning visual cortex. So the scans showed him to be classically blind, but not functionally so.

https://youtu.be/GwGmWqX0MnM

 

[Darat]

I actually misspoke there, to a small extent. The brain scans showed that there was some low level activity in the brain when images were presented to him, but it was completely unconscious and all other tests showed him to be blind. It was further found he had no functioning visual cortex. So the scans showed him to be classically blind, but not functionally so.

https://youtu.be/GwGmWqX0MnM

And this is the brilliance of science - it has moved on since then.

Read a later paper - using the same subject - his brain does respond to "looming". http://www.beatricedegelder.com/documents/Hervais-Adelman_fnint_2015.pdf

..snip...

In conclusion, our findings revealed that, despite the absence
of a functional primary visual cortex, looming motion activated
a neural network that included bilateral clusters in the middle
temporal lobes anterior to hMT+/V5 areas in the healthy brain
that may have developed through cortical plasticity to respond
to motion. In addition, cortical regions that generally participate
in the processing of visual saliency (IPL) and visual guidance in
space (IPL and cingulate) were found to be active. The fact that
looming may continue to be processed without V1 may be due to
its high level of salience and the importance of this direction of
motion as a signal of imminent collision or threat.



...snip...

It is a fascinating paper.

One thing did occur to me and that this subject should be recognised as being a bloody good chap letting these scientist use him as a guinea pig all these years.

 

[Darat]

..snip...

Of course.

When and how?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

How clearer can I be? I consider myself conscious but I don't have qualia. Since it was claimed that qualia are necessary for consciousness I am therefore "proof" that even if qualia exist they are not necessary for consciousness.

Except that qualia are required for the aspect of consciousness we are discussing in this thread. I can probably avoid talking about your case specifically, and if for some reason I need to refer to you as an example again I will say that you don't experience qualia. That accurate?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

To those who propose something called qualia exist, have you ever had the experience of "redness" without it being tied into perception of something that is red?

Yes.

 

[baron]

And this is the brilliance of science - it has moved on since then.

Read a later paper - using the same subject - his brain does respond to "looming". http://www.beatricedegelder.com/documents/Hervais-Adelman_fnint_2015.pdf

Sure, and it's all done without his conscious awareness.

When and how?

Well... when I think of 'red'. I imagine something red and experience redness. When I dream. Have you never dreamed of anything red?

 

[Darat]

Except that qualia are required for the aspect of consciousness we are discussing in this thread. I can probably avoid talking about your case specifically, and if for some reason I need to refer to you as an example again I will say that you don't experience qualia. That accurate?

Let me try once more:

The claim is that qualia are necessary for consciousness or a component of conciousness
I have consciousness (or put it as "I am conscious" if you like)
I do not have qualia

Therefore the claim is false.

 

[Cheetah]

Yes, I get what you're saying but it is not the same. What you're describing is simply zoning out, and it's a natural part of human operation. Without unconscious processing of information you would be dead inside of a minute. Blind sight is different. You can be as consciously focused as you like but you won't see anything. All traditional tests and brain scans will show you to be blind. It's in this way the comparison can be drawn between information processing and consciousness.

Yes, precisely, you are constantly zoned out, every waking moment of your life. You are always "blind" to a lot of the input all your scenes are receiving. You cannot pay attention to everything at once, but pick the important things to pay attention to.
Blindsight is the same, you literally lose the ability to focus your attention on your sight. "You can be as consciously focused as you like but you won't see anything".
Brain scans show that the visual cortex of a blindsighted person is receiving the input and processing it, even they are not aware of it and cannot focus their attention on it.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Let me try once more:

The claim is that qualia are necessary for consciousness or a component of conciousness
I have consciousness (or put it as "I am conscious" if you like)
I do not have qualia

Therefore the claim is false.

You've refuted a stupid claim that no one is making with a semantic argument.

 

[baron]

Yes, precisely, you are constantly zoned out, every waking moment of your life. You are always "blind" to a lot of the input all your scenes are receiving. You cannot pay attention to everything at once, but pick the important things to pay attention to.
Blindsight is the same, you literally lose the ability to focus your attention on your sight.

No, no, and thrice no. It is not the same. Blind sight does not rob you of the ability to focus on your sight, you can focus all you like and you're not going to see anything because the normal visual pathways are no longer in play.

If you can't see this (no pun intended) then I'd suggest you check out studies of blind sight patients who are blind in one eye only. They may help you understand where you're going wrong.

What generally happens is this: An object is presented to the subject on their blind side. The subject is asked what it is and because he can't see it he obviously replies that he doesn't know. The subject is then asked to guess what it is, or presented with a list of possible options, and invariably he will correctly identify the object. The information is there and he's consciously focusing, but it's only when he stops focusing and lets his unconscious take over that he correctly identifies the object.

This has nothing to do with zoning out.

 

[Darat]

..snip...
Well... when I think of 'red'. I imagine something red and experience redness. When I dream. Have you never dreamed of anything red?

No.

This is what I was referring to earlier about something I learned about only comparatively recently, I do not have what is called "a minds eye".

For all my life I thought people were just being poetic about "seeing" things when they close their eyes, when they said "I can imagine a red apple". I did not realise that you all actually meant you see something like you see something in the real world. I cannot "visualise" anything in my minds eye, when I think about someone I can not call up their face in my mind, I cannot "experience red" unless I am looking at something that is red.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

This means I have no separate "experience of redness" away from my direct perception of things that are red. Therefore I do not have "qualia" so even if they exist they are not a necessary component of consciousness.

 

[Darat]

You've refuted a stupid claim that no one is making with a semantic argument.

From the beginning of qualia being brought into the thread:

I'd say qualia is the experience of the perception. The perception can - and indeed has - been measured, but there is no method, even theoretically speaking, to measure qualia. Hence, some say it doesn't even exist, which I find literally incredible.

There was a recent experiment where impulses in the brain were re-engineered into images, based on pattern recognition data built up over earlier experiments, so a person could look at an object and from the electrical activity of their brain alone, an image of that object could be displayed on a monitor. This is dealing with perception. The qualia is the feeling of how that object is experienced in consciousness.

 

[baron]

No.

This is what I was referring to earlier about something I learned about only comparatively recently, I do not have what is called "a minds eye".

For all my life I thought people were just being poetic about "seeing" things when they close their eyes, when they said "I can imagine a red apple". I did not realise that you all actually meant you see something like you see something in the real world. I cannot "visualise" anything in my minds eye, when I think about someone I can not call up their face in my mind, I cannot "experience red" unless I am looking at something that is red.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

This means I have no separate "experience of redness" away from my direct perception of things that are red. Therefore I do not have "qualia" so even if they exist they are not a necessary component of consciousness.

Really? That's quite amazing if so, sans sarcasm. I have no idea what that would be like. If I relax, especially before sleep, I can visualise objects very clearly, and I can also lucid dream at will - the images in lucid dreams far exceed the clarity of everyday life and you're fully conscious all the time. I must say, if I lost this ability I might jump in the river.

 

[Darat]

Yes, precisely, you are constantly zoned out, every waking moment of your life. You are always "blind" to a lot of the input all your scenes are receiving. You cannot pay attention to everything at once, but pick the important things to pay attention to.
Blindsight is the same, you literally lose the ability to focus your attention on your sight. "You can be as consciously focused as you like but you won't see anything".
Brain scans show that the visual cortex of a blindsighted person is receiving the input and processing it, even they are not aware of it and cannot focus their attention on it.

No - the scans show the "primary" visual systems are destroyed, they also show that other parts of the brain can and still do process visual stimulus. It appears that our consciousness requires the visual cortex intact for us to be able to invoke the internal narrator (consciousness) to say we can see something.



Saying that I don't know why this is meant to be significant in any way to the reason why we can't use science to describe and understand consciousness. It in fact suggests avenues of approach for how consciousness works. It makes it more likely that we will be able to accurately explain consciousness via "science".