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

[BadBoy]

I have always considered solipsism to be a slightly interesting thought process, but other than that entirely useless.

Someone said "Science works" earlier, which of course it does since I wouldn't be able to have this conversation over this medium if it didn't. The point is, even if I am a brain in a vat, as long as science works (as long as it continues to produce consistent and reliable results) then the idea that I could be a brain in a vat is inconsequential and makes no difference to how I live my life. In fact, even if I somehow knew I lived in the matrix but it was impossible to understand what the matrix was, it still would make no difference to what brings meaning to our lives.

Perhaps, if one were to discover reality was just an illusion, they would then cease to exist, bit like the Azimov short story Jokester.

 

[David Mo]

Sorry.

One last attempt.

I look at an optical illusion that looks like it is moving. My experience is that I am looking at something moving. But I'm not, I just think I am.

For all the solpolist knows they are simply an illusion of an experience created by a computer simulation. The solpolist has to assume that their awareness/experience/thinking is the real thing.

All right, here we go.

Even in the example you assume, you need a computer that is cheated. The Ego is the computer. Moreover, your example assumes at least two thinking entities: the deceiver and the deceived.

The problem with your approach is that it ignores the fact that it is very different to discuss about the existence of the real world than about the existence of the Self that is thinking. The existence of the real world supposes two entities - the one that thinks and what is outside of it - while the existence of the Ego only supposes the existence of ideas that form a consciousness. The first problem involves the existence of a causal relationship between different entities and the second does not. Here is where Hume attacked. He showed that causal relationships are only relationships between impressions or ideas, but not between something unknown -the thing- and impressions. I suppose that this approach was what Einstein admired about Hume.

 

[David Mo]

And? If I imagine, hallucinate or write something, that fiction will be inconsistent. Not so with the things we consider real. The ability to predict the same results consistently is what separates reality from the rest. I'm satisfied that this demonstrates that this reality is not dependant upon my mind.

Predictability doesn't affect solipsism. The solipsist will say it is true, some ideas are chaotic and others predictable. But that only implies that some ideas are in one way or another. It is true, the solipsist will say, predictable ideas reinforce our belief in the existence of an outer world, just as our despair can fuel belief in God. But that does not mean that reality or God exist. They're just beliefs. Different in many ways, but beliefs.

Besides, note that there are many things that are not predictable and we also believe that they are real. As Bizet used to say: the same as the fatuous fire, the same is the love of a woman. Capricious as the goddess fortune. Sort of. And yet love exists, which Galileo would say. (Well, I'm afraid I'm making a mess with quotations, but you know what I mean, I suppose).

 

[David Mo]

Here's another idea for people here who are supporting solipsism as at least a credible or useful claim. Or even for anyone who agree's that we can be “certain” that we at least have conscious thinking “minds” -

It seems to me that this is addressed to me, although I don't see it clearly. I'll try to answer anyway.

- even if you cannot give an actual “proof” that you are thinking conscious thoughts, describe to the rest of us anything at all about those thoughts which does not in fact require reality for you even to ever to make any claim of anything at all about your thoughts … can you do that? …

… point is – I think it will probably prove impossible for you to offer anything at all about any such thoughts, without it immediately confirming an admission of reality.

So maybe someone would like to try that!

Easy: I have the impression of some forms and colours that I call “computer”. Where is the word for "reality" here?

The philosophical claim here is that reality is NOT "physical! Here the philosophical claim is that no such reality exists at all!

This is not “the philosophical claim” here. I don’t know any philosopher that claims this. If “physical” means outside the human mind I know a small group of philosophers —and scientists!— that claim this. Berkeley, Mach and perhaps Heisenberg. Almost every philosopher believes that reality exists outside our minds, but the problem is how we can justify this belief.

 

[David Mo]

Any ontological claim about the nature of reality is philosophical regardless of what the claim actually is
But it cannot be scientifically determined because science just deals with observable phenomena and its
properties. So has absolutely nothing at all to say about the reality that such phenomena operate within

The bottom line is that mind independent physical reality is taken to be true. But it cannot actually be determined
because mind independent experience is simply not possible. It cannot ever be determined because all knowledge
and experience has to be processed through the mind. So it is therefore a known unknown and an eternal one too

I agree, except the last phrase that I don't understand well.

These are the main conclusions of the debate about solipsism.
Of course, nobody -or almost nobody- likes to accept solipsism. But the tribute to solipsism is that reality gives two paces back and we have to make do with its traces in our minds and the uncertainess about almost everything.

 

[IanS]

Here's another idea for people here who are supporting solipsism as at least a credible or useful claim. Or even for anyone who agree's that we can be “certain” that we at least have conscious thinking “minds” -

- even if you cannot give an actual “proof” that you are thinking conscious thoughts, describe to the rest of us anything at all about those thoughts which does not in fact require reality for you even to ever to make any claim of anything at all about your thoughts … can you do that? …

… point is – I think it will probably prove impossible for you to offer anything at all about any such thoughts, without it immediately confirming an admission of reality.

So maybe someone would like to try that!

When I posed that above question, someone here claimed to refute it by writing a post on the internet to say he could imagine colours from a computer. He was claiming that no external reality was needed for him to do that. Well, he is plainly wrong -

- firstly (apart from numerous other problems with his claim), how was he able to write any such post on any internet forum if no such post and no such internet actually exists?

No. The very fact that he can communicate with anyone or anything else at all, is immediately an admission that he is wrong and that he requires reality to say anything at all about "solipsism" (or about anything else).

If he can make any reply at all to the problem that I posed in that quote (above), then he is immediately in the position of admitting the need for reality.

And by the way – despite asking at least half a dozen times now we still have no answer from the philosophers as to how they claim that “consciousness” (i.e. thoughts, i.e. so-called mental “experiences” ... all just different words for the same thing) could possibly arise without the need for a real brain (or the reality of any equivalent, such as a computer simulating things) -

- where is the philosophers explanation of how their consciousness exists if it is not being produced by the reality of a brain? We are now very long overdue for an honest credible answer to that.

 

[IanS]

The bottom line is that mind independent physical reality is taken to be true. But it cannot actually be determinedbecause mind independent experience is simply not possible. It cannot ever be determined because all knowledge
and experience has to be processed through the mind. So it is therefore a known unknown and an eternal one too

I don't actually disagree with the above, except that you need to clarify what you mean by the word "determined"? You say that reality cannot be "determined" as true ... do you mean it cannot be "proved"? ... or do you just mean that we cannot place reasonable confidence in the "evidence" of an observed/detected reality?

If by "determined" you are actually asking for a literal "proof", then that is an inadmissible demand/question, because as far as we can tell (from modern science) we cannot actually "prove" anything at all about anything in this universe … absolute proofs are probably inherently impossible in a universe which appears to be based upon fundamentally probabilistic events at the quantum level. And scientists do not claim any such proofs in any case.

So all we can ever deal with, is credible evidence and credible explanations. Explanations which can be tested, checked and shown to be accurately repeatable, and which also fit consistently with every other observation of anything (in science every "theory" must agree precisely with every "other theory", and exceptions are not possible without implying that the theory is wrong in some way).

So the real question always reduces to - do we have genuine credible evidence of the existence of the world that we all detect around us? The answer to that is undoubtedly yes, and I've explained that many times already in this thread.

Of course anyone can object to say that whatever evidence anyone obtains, that is always obtained by whatever method they have used to obtain that same evidence! E.g., as humans we use our sensory system, brain, nervous system, limbs etc. BUT ... even if it were possible for us, or for any life-form to use some other means of detection, something that was not a brain or a sensory system, something entirely different lets call it X ... then you could still always make the same absolutely trivial complaint to say that whatever they detected was dependent entirely on X as their means of detecting anything.

However, all of that is a different issue from philosophers claiming that our detected reality may not exist. That is a different claim than merely pointing out that we can only ever use whatever detection system we have at our disposal. Once the claim becomes one of saying that reality does not exist, or even saying that it may not exist, then those philosophers have to explain how that claim (which is their claim ... it's not the claim of science) can be possible without the reality of a brain (or some equivalent reality such as an advanced alien computer simulation).

 

[Belz...]

Predictability doesn't affect solipsism. The solipsist will say it is true, some ideas are chaotic and others predictable. But that only implies that some ideas are in one way or another.

Of course. As I said nobody is asking for 100% certainty except the solipsist. But since that's silly and useless, we can safely ignore them. And again, they act as if they don't believe in solipsism, so they don't even take their own claims to the bank.

 

[David Mo]

When I posed that above question, someone here claimed to refute it by writing a post on the internet to say he could imagine colours from a computer. He was claiming that no external reality was needed for him to do that. Well, he is plainly wrong -

- firstly (apart from numerous other problems with his claim), how was he able to write any such post on any internet forum if no such post and no such internet actually exists?

No. The very fact that he can communicate with anyone or anything else at all, is immediately an admission that he is wrong and that he requires reality to say anything at all about "solipsism" (or about anything else).

If he can make any reply at all to the problem that I posed in that quote (above), then he is immediately in the position of admitting the need for reality.

And by the way – despite asking at least half a dozen times now we still have no answer from the philosophers as to how they claim that “consciousness” (i.e. thoughts, i.e. so-called mental “experiences” ... all just different words for the same thing) could possibly arise without the need for a real brain (or the reality of any equivalent, such as a computer simulating things) -

- where is the philosophers explanation of how their consciousness exists if it is not being produced by the reality of a brain? We are now very long overdue for an honest credible answer to that.

From Someone to IanS.

Dear Sir.:

I would beg you not to mistake me for a solipsist. You have a penchant for thinking I am, and that's not true. In this forum I am merely presenting the position of the solipsist, which is something very different. In any case:

You asked for a proposition in which the concept of reality would not appear and I gave it to you. The proposition referred only to sensations and ideas, not reality. The first part of your request is satisfied.
Now you ask about the reasons for behaving as a solipsist in front of the computer. That is another question. It is also interesting. It has two parts:

Epistemologically: The solipsist responds to messages that appear on his computer because it is fun and because he feels like it. He knows that when the idea of "I write on the computer"appears in his mind, other impressions that we could call "IanS has written" impressions usually appear later. Some ideas seem to provoke other ideas and he likes or is interested in them. He may also dislike and interrupt the flow of ideas. It is the same as when he has the impression of a stone going towards him. He knows that the next impression will be pain and tries to avoid it.
In all of this, as you can see, there are no more than relationships of ideas. Note that when the solipsist says "computer" he is really saying an abbreviation for "This and this sensations that form the idea that I call 'computer'".

Psychologically, the issue is more complicated because I don't know any real solipsist. I don't know what is on his mind. Putting aside outlandish cases, such as Pyrrho of Elis, most of those who claim to be solipsists or something similar have moved about in normal life like other people. Mach did science and Berkeley was bishop. That forced them to behave like normal people and I don't know what reason they would give themselves. I suspect they didn't really believe their own subjectivism. But this is not the question that interests me about solipsism which, to me at least, is simply a theoretical problem.

Best regards.

OFF TOPIC: My name is Mo, David Mo.

 

[IanS]

Incidentally, apart from the fact that we are still waiting for any philosophy supporters here to provide an explanation of how a thinking mind can exist without the reality of a brain, there is another reason why the solipsist belief is self-defeating and actually a contradiction in it's own terms -

- this is something I have alluded to here several times before, but to spell it out more clearly ...

… if no reality exists outside of a single solipsist mind, then there is no way for that solipsist to ever communicate any notion of solipsism to anyone else. I.e., the only way for any claim of solipsism to be known is if reality does exist. Put that another way – if solipsism has ever been mentioned by anyone ever at all, then it immediately shows that reality must exist and that the solipsism claim was wrong.

The only objection I can see to that above statement is for philosophy to claim that everything is taking place only within one single solipsist mind. I.e., so that when that one mind argues that reality does not exist, that same mind is simultaneously disagreeing with itself to claim that reality does exist … all these posts here and all their arguments would need to be taking place inside just one single solipsist mind …

… that solipsist mind cannot cannot make it's own mind up! – it's claiming two opposing things at once … simultaneously claiming to itself that reality does exist and also that it does not exist. And all the while, it cannot communicate a single word of any such notion of solipsism to anyone else without proving itself wrong and admitting the need for an external reality.

 

[LarryS]

I agree, except the last phrase that I don't understand well.

These are the main conclusions of the debate about solipsism.
Of course, nobody -or almost nobody- likes to accept solipsism. But the tribute to solipsism is that reality gives two paces back and we have to make do with its traces in our minds and the uncertainess about almost everything.

Solipsism is really a non sequitur, I haven't read anyone here in this or other related threads endorse solipsism. How solipsism keeps coming up is because whenever anyone throws doubt re materialism, there are several individuals that immediately throw up the solipsism banner, and the thread goes into 'defcon solipsism' mode.

 

[IanS]

Yes, and one suggested reason for perceived predictability is that reality is physical and independent. However, we have not, and can't locate this independent physical reality because logically we can't find anything that lies outside of awareness. So this definition of reality as 'independent and physical' is assigning one possible set of attributes that seem to work - ultimately it's circular.

Larry - what you are writing just shows yet again that philosophical arguments are just arguments about words and language. I said that to you here some pages back (it's something that is demonstrated over-&-over-again in almost every thread here when philosophical arguments are made). But just to explain what I mean in respect of your post above -

- in that highlighted sentence of your quote, what do you mean by the word "find"? I think you are using the word "find" when you actually mean "proved". I'll explain it again ...

... we certainly can "find" "things that lie outside our awareness" ... all of the science literature is crammed full of "finding" such things, and all of human, animal and every other experience ever, is also totally full of "finding" such external reality. What we "find" is the evidence of such apparent reality. What cannot be produced, either for claims of reality, or claims of non-reality, is literally "certain proof" ... but absolute proof of that sort that is not possible for anything at all (real or otherwise)!! ... it appears instead that we live in universe most accurately described by probability-rules for quantum interactions, and not a world where we can ever say as a matter of "certainty" that we have a "100% proof" for anything.

So to repeat (otherwise I doubt that you will understand the crucial point) - we certainly can "find" the evidence of things that, as far as anyone can honestly tell, do lay outside of our mental "awareness" - everything ever experienced by anything (living or non-living) is crammed full of that evidence, and with afaik no evidence at all to the contrary (do you want to claim that you have genuine evidence of non-reality? yes? OK, what is that evidence then??) ... but what is not possible, and not possible for anything at all, is to "find prove anything that lies outside of awareness".


Finally – please take a look at my previous post above No.1030 , and note the very clear reasoning there, which shows that as soon as you communicate any notion of non-realty at all, then your claim of non-reality instantly fails.

 

[LarryS]

So to repeat (otherwise I doubt that you will understand the crucial point) - we certainly can "find" the evidence of things that, as far as anyone can honestly tell, do lay outside of our mental "awareness" - everything ever experienced by anything (living or non-living) is crammed full of that evidence, and with afaik no evidence at all to the contrary (do you want to claim that you have genuine evidence of non-reality? yes? OK, what is that evidence then??) ... but what is not possible, and not possible for anything at all, is to "find prove anything that lies outside of awareness".


Finally – please take a look at my previous post above No.1030 , and note the very clear reasoning there, which shows that as soon as you communicate any notion of non-realty at all, then your claim of non-reality instantly fails.

No, I mean the word 'find', as in, we can not find this independent physical reality. For example, when you pick up, feel and taste a cup of coffee, that experience lies within consciousness, that experience occurs within consciousness. If we were honest with our language all we can say is: Our experience of a thing is the experience of it. We've been conditioned to believe there is an independent physical reality, but we've never found it.
Secondly, I've never claimed that experience is not real or that there is no reality.
I have not made any clear claim as to what is the nature of reality - if I were to submit a guess or hunch I would suggest that (some form of) idealism is more accurate or complete than materialism, but reality is likely neither.

 

[Belz...]

No, I mean the word 'find', as in, we can not find this independent physical reality. For example, when you pick up, feel and taste a cup of coffee, that experience lies within consciousness, that experience occurs within consciousness.

It really doesn't.

 

[LarryS]

It really doesn't.

where would you suggest experience occurs?

 

[Belz...]

where would you suggest experience occurs?

Oh, is it in the brain, or in the 'consciousness' that it generates? Hard to tell, since consciousness is wholly created by the brain, is transient, and only observes the results. I guess you could say that experience is in the mind, but reality is still outside of it.

 

[LarryS]

Oh, is it in the brain, or in the 'consciousness' that it generates? Hard to tell, since consciousness is wholly created by the brain, is transient, and only observes the results. I guess you could say that experience is in the mind, but reality is still outside of it.

We can say experience takes place in the brain, or that reality is 'outside', but these are beliefs. We don't experience a brain, nor do we experience a brain as container, nor do we experience anything outside of the mind.
These beliefs have high utility, but that does not mean they represent reality.

 

[surreptitious57]

you need to clarify what you mean by the word determined

There is no actual evidence for mind independent reality. Even though I think it really exists and solipsism is a philosophically redundant idea
But as long as all knowledge and experience comes through the mind then there is no objective way to show that reality is mind independent
Now I accept without reservation the reality I experience is mind independent but unless I can actually demonstrate it without using my mind
I cannot be certain. The scientific method is the most brutal methodology ever devised. But it cannot determine if reality is mind independent
And ths is because those using the methodology [ scientists ] are doing so exclusively from a mind dependent perspective. Now it is assumed
that reality is mind independent but assumption cannot satisfy the rigour of the scientific method and so it cannot be scientifically determined

 

[Belz...]

We can say experience takes place in the brain, or that reality is 'outside', but these are beliefs. We don't experience a brain, nor do we experience a brain as container, nor do we experience anything outside of the mind.
These beliefs have high utility, but that does not mean they represent reality.

You're wrong and I explained why earlier.

 

[Belz...]

There is no actual evidence for mind independent reality.

That is absolutely false. There is overwhelming evidence that it exists. That it doesn't represent 100% certainty is irrelevant to that claim.