proto-consciousness field theory

[baron]

I only see or experience red when my eyes are open and there is a red apple in front of me.

That's enough - that's qualia. I don't know why you won't believe this.

 

[Belz...]

It's fundamental and ubiquitous.

"Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel it around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere! "

 

[Chanakya]

Some people claim it's (that consciousness is merely an illusion) been proven, but it just boils down to a handful of people asserting vehemently that it's been proven, AFAIK.

[/QUOTE]


You could be right. And I still haven't read anything on this, not even those 2 articles.

But about this part: isn't this a bit like the God question? Rather than saying, 'Sure, he/it exists, I feel/know it, you prove he/it doesn't exist', won't the burden of objective proof lie with those who do posit God, or free will, or consciousness?

 

[ServiceSoon]

Just because the mind can be shown to have been tricked sometimes doesn't automatically imply it is being tricked all of the time.

 

[kellyb]

That's enough - that's qualia. I don't know why you won't believe this.

I've been over this with him before. I think Darat's just amused by the notion that he's a real life p-zombie. LOL

On a related note, I think "I" (depending on your definition of "I" ) actually have been a p-zombie before. When coming out of massive seizures (again, I'm epileptic), I apparently talk a lot and express emotions and desires, like ("I'm cold, can I have a blanket?") even tho there is no "me" there. I woke up once to the sound of another voice saying "My tongue is numb". (The voice I heard, turned out, was my own..I'd badly bitten my tongue in a seizure rendering it totally numb.)

 

[kellyb]

Just because the mind can be shown to have been tricked sometimes doesn't automatically imply it is being tricked all of the time.

Even if I'm tricked all the time, that doesn't mean I do not exist!

 

[baron]

I've been over this with him before. I think Darat's just amused by the notion that he's a real life p-zombie. LOL

He certainly seems eager to embrace the notion.

On a related note, I think "I" (depending on your definition of "I" ) actually have been a p-zombie before. When coming out of massive seizures (again, I'm epileptic), I apparently talk a lot and express emotions and desires, like ("I'm cold, can I have a blanket?") even tho there is no "me" there. I woke up once to the sound of another voice saying "My tongue is numb". (The voice I heard, turned out, was my own..I'd badly bitten my tongue in a seizure rendering it totally numb.)

Ah, now we're onto something different. As I say, I don't believe in the permanent self, but my theory regarding consciousness does allow for two things that might be of relevance:

1) Multiple seats of consciousness in the brain
2) Mechanical actions for which consciousness takes credit

Either one (or even a combination) could explain your experiences.

In the first instance, your seizure has caused localised concentrations of information processing (or disruption) to form in your brain, causing multiple seats of consciousness; consciousness A causes you do say and do various things whilst consciousness B - your transient self - listens in. There's more to say on this but that's just an example.

In the second instance your body mechanically performs actions. However, your consciousness, which would normally take credit for them, is out-of-whack (a scientific term) on account of your epileptic seizure and thus it appears like you are the observer as opposed to the cause.

I personally think the second option is way more likely.

 

[kellyb]

He certainly seems eager to embrace the notion.



Ah, now we're onto something different. As I say, I don't believe in the permanent self, but my theory regarding consciousness does allow for two things that might be of relevance:

1) Multiple seats of consciousness in the brain
2) Mechanical actions for which consciousness takes credit

Either one (or even a combination) could explain your experiences.

In the first instance, your seizure has caused localised concentrations of information processing (or disruption) to form in your brain, causing multiple seats of consciousness; consciousness A causes you do say and do various things whilst consciousness B - your transient self - listens in. There's more to say on this but that's just an example.

In the second instance your body mechanically performs actions. However, your consciousness, which would normally take credit for them, is out-of-whack (a scientific term) on account of your epileptic seizure and thus it appears like you are the observer as opposed to the cause.

I personally think the second option is way more likely.

My gut sense is that it's more like the second thing, too. I really think my body and brain was functionally a p-zombie, doing rote memorization verbalizing about "perceptions" which were about as "conscious" as an iPhone. I was happy to learn that "I" was totally pleasant and kind when in zombie-mode, but that's just a testament to how well I've trained myself to "act pleasant" lol

I do not know wtf is up with consciousness. It really feels like the deeper I dive into the deep end trying to figure it all out, the more I see that the space to explore is more vast and deep than I could ever hope to comprehend.

 

[Chanakya]

It's fundamental and ubiquitous.

I beg your pardon, you seem to have stated this very clearly, already. Afraid I'm rushed, and have been kind of stealing quick looks here, rather than reading all this carefully and at leisure.

But that field -- even granting that such exists -- why would that tie with what we commonly think of as consciousness? You're not joking, I hope? Doesn't this veer off into decidedly supernatural/magical territory?

 

[Chanakya]

Just because the mind can be shown to have been tricked sometimes doesn't automatically imply it is being tricked all of the time.

What you say is true, as far as that goes.

But surely you see that this is textbook special pleading?

Unless you can clearly provide good reasons for this exceptionalism -- that is, why the burden of proof operates one way for (a) God, but then changes direction when it comes to (b) free will and (c) consciousness -- I'm afraid that kind of reasoning would be fallacious.

 

[Chanakya]

...I'm someone who does not have such qualia absent a clear environmental stimulus. I only see or experience red when my eyes are open and there is a red apple in front of me.

Never heard of somthing like this! Although TBH there's plenty I've not heard of, so ...

Have you had this condition diagnosed, then?

 

[Darat]

I've been over this with him before. I think Darat's just amused by the notion that he's a real life p-zombie. LOL [emoji14]



On a related note, I think "I" (depending on your definition of "I" ) actually have been a p-zombie before. When coming out of massive seizures (again, I'm epileptic), I apparently talk a lot and express emotions and desires, like ("I'm cold, can I have a blanket?") even tho there is no "me" there. I woke up once to the sound of another voice saying "My tongue is numb". (The voice I heard, turned out, was my own..I'd badly bitten my tongue in a seizure rendering it totally numb.)

Nope. It would appear you don't understand what the claims are for qualia. Qualia are not mean to be the same as stimulus then reaction. Redness is mean to be something different than certain wavelengths of photons hitting a retina, causing chemical changes and so on. They are meant to explain how we can have an "experience" of redness aside from the perception of red. As me and other folk demonstrate even if they exist they are not a requirement for consciousness. Of course so far no one has demonstrated that they do exist.

 

[Darat]

Never heard of somthing like this! Although TBH there's plenty I've not heard of, so ...



Have you had this condition diagnosed, then?

Only learnt about it a few years back, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054. I've posted about it in the past in these types of discussions, but I never realised that I was different, I always thought folk were being poetic and using flowery language when they talked about what they could see in their mind's eye. I never realised you did in fact have a real mind's eye.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Where have I denied that? I have no idea how the conscious field and matter might interact, which is exactly the same understanding you have of how a brain might produce consciousness directly, i.e. zero.

You're denying that it interacts. If "the line" is an entity, then so is the interaction between a brain and the consciousness field. And only one of the two of those things isn't an arbitrary straw man invented by you.

Because I see it as eminently more logical to postulate the existence of a field rather than saying "We don't know what consciousness is, but the brain creates it, but it doesn't really exist."

You're the only person who is arguing that emergent properties don't exist.

And you've still not answered my question - why do you favour this explanation as opposed to an alternate explanation? Is it purely because you can't think of another one? Do you sincerely believe that the only two options are that consciousness is generated by the brain and that there is a consciousness field?

I say it does exist and if it exists it must be something. If you don't believe consciousness exists then fine, I just don't understand how you can take that position.

That's because it's a straw man, and you know it's a straw man.

How can you know that you have an experience of time having passed during dreamless sleep?

Because you go to sleep and wake up, feeling that time has passed.

What method do you use to detect dreamless sleep, and how do you separate it from the periods of REM sleep and half-wakefulness that everybody experiences during their sleep cycles?

I've worked jobs with very crazy work schedules, and sometimes have had to sleep while other things are going on and for short periods of time. I've been asleep for 15 minutes in a room full of people who commented that I'd gone "absolutely sparko". That's too short a time to enter REM sleep, and according to all observers completely unconscious and displaying no signs of REM sleep.

Yet when I've woken up, I've perceived that time has passed, as opposed to the "jump-cut" of losing consciousness.

That's irrelevant. You said, "On the contrary, I've seen many stories where somnambulists were dreaming about doing one thing while physically doing something relevant to that (such as punching in their sleep because they believe themselves to be fighting an ogre)."

I pointed out that the bracketed portion is not somnambulism, it is RBD. You are confusing elements of sleeping experience just as you are confusing elements of conscious experience.

RBD occurs during REM sleep. That's not what I'm talking about.

And you are again introducing irrelevancies to distract from the point. Your statement was: "A sleepwalker can perform tasks as complex as cooking or driving a car whilst unresponsive and seemingly asleep. We're told they are unconscious, as having no internal experience, but this is based only on the 'evidence' that they don't remember their actions." This is incorrect on two counts - the first being that anybody claims that sleepwalkers have no internal experience while sleepwalking, and the second being that sleepwalkers don't remember anything, when they frequently do.

And what do you conclude from that?

That the two of your claims in the above paragraph are factually inaccurate.

It's doing a great many things.

What? What is it running? Do computer programmes exist?

Self awareness.

Why does self awareness require a higher standard of being said to exist than calculations do?

Emergent properties don't exist.

So you keep saying. What you keep failing to do, though, is make a cogent argument for this assertion.

Consciousness does.

On what evidence do you base the assertion that consciousness exists in a more real sense than emergent properties do?

Therefore consciousness is not an emergent property. I don't know how I can phrase it more clearly.

And yet again you're only making a case against what you believe isn't true, rather than making a case for what you believe to be true. This is exactly the same as arguments for creationism.

No, why would they?

If your explanation for the smaller parts of, say, an ant colony (individual ants) acting as a single larger, system is the consciousness field, then why is the same not true for individual water molecules acting as a single, larger system? What distinguishes the ant colony from the ocean so that both can exhibit behaviours as a whole that individual identical components cannot yet one requires a different explanation to the other? Why does one require an external force to explain its behaviour while the other doesn't?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

But the without stimulus is the point used to argue that feeling pain, seeing red is different to the "experience" of red.

I've never seen that argument made, nor seen it used in a definition of qualia.

But I'm someone who does not have such qualia absent a clear environmental stimulus. I only see or experience red when my eyes are open and there is a red apple in front of me.

I'm honestly not sure you're different from anybody else on this score.

 

[baron]

You're denying that it interacts. If "the line" is an entity, then so is the interaction between a brain and the consciousness field. And only one of the two of those things isn't an arbitrary straw man invented by you.

If you want to call it an entity then go ahead and do so, just bear in mind it's an entity that must be owned by both sides of the argument, so my point still stands.

You're the only person who is arguing that emergent properties don't exist.

Well, like another poster, nobody knows what you're arguing because you don't have a debating position, nor do you have a theory on the topic, you're just sniping at mine.

And you've still not answered my question - why do you favour this explanation as opposed to an alternate explanation? Is it purely because you can't think of another one? Do you sincerely believe that the only two options are that consciousness is generated by the brain and that there is a consciousness field?

I have answered your question, you're just unwilling or unable to understand my response. Maybe if you adopted a debating position and put forward your theory things would become clearer.

That's because it's a straw man, and you know it's a straw man.

Yawn.

Because you go to sleep and wake up, feeling that time has passed.

Your sleep cycle consists of purely deep sleep? You are unique in the world.

I've worked jobs with very crazy work schedules, and sometimes have had to sleep while other things are going on and for short periods of time. I've been asleep for 15 minutes in a room full of people who commented that I'd gone "absolutely sparko". That's too short a time to enter REM sleep

Wrong. A person can enter REM sleep immediately and can even dream in non-REM sleep.

, and according to all observers completely unconscious and displaying no signs of REM sleep.

Now you're talking soft. You expect me to believe you fall asleep in a 'room full of people' who immediately examine you for signs of REM sleep (maybe they peer at your eyelids or get out their covert EEGs) and then, when you awaken, they all give testimony about how you were 'completely unconscious' and displaying no signs of REM. Do you live in a sleep laboratory or something?

Yet when I've woken up, I've perceived that time has passed, as opposed to the "jump-cut" of losing consciousness.

RBD occurs during REM sleep. That's not what I'm talking about.

The fact is neither of us know what you're talking about.

And you are again introducing irrelevancies to distract from the point. Your statement was: "A sleepwalker can perform tasks as complex as cooking or driving a car whilst unresponsive and seemingly asleep. We're told they are unconscious, as having no internal experience, but this is based only on the 'evidence' that they don't remember their actions." This is incorrect on two counts - the first being that anybody claims that sleepwalkers have no internal experience while sleepwalking, and the second being that sleepwalkers don't remember anything, when they frequently do.

That the two of your claims in the above paragraph are factually inaccurate.

Why are you assuming I'm talking of every single instance of sleepwalking? As you quoted, I said, "A sleepwalker can... We are told they are unconscious..." My statement clearly refers to those to whom this applies, which is probably the majority.

What? What is it running? Do computer programmes exist?



Why does self awareness require a higher standard of being said to exist than calculations do?



So you keep saying. What you keep failing to do, though, is make a cogent argument for this assertion.



On what evidence do you base the assertion that consciousness exists in a more real sense than emergent properties do?



And yet again you're only making a case against what you believe isn't true, rather than making a case for what you believe to be true. This is exactly the same as arguments for creationism.

Instead of bombarding me with frankly stupid questions maybe you can explain what you believe consciousness to be, and also explain why you believe it and why you reject all other explanations.

If your explanation for the smaller parts of, say, an ant colony (individual ants) acting as a single larger, system is the consciousness field, then why is the same not true for individual water molecules acting as a single, larger system? What distinguishes the ant colony from the ocean so that both can exhibit behaviours as a whole that individual identical components cannot yet one requires a different explanation to the other? Why does one require an external force to explain its behaviour while the other doesn't?

An ant is vastly more complex than a water molecule. More information processing goes on in an ant than in a drop of water. The options for an ant's behaviour are orders of magnitude more than for a drop of water, as are thus the number of options available to it. But if you had taken the trouble to try and understand my thinking, which I have clearly and repeatedly posted in this thread, you would also understand that I believe that water droplets and the ocean itself have rudimentary consciousness, so you could have avoided the straw man of 'Why does one require an external force whilst the other does not?"

 

[Belz...]

I'm honestly not sure you're different from anybody else on this score.

Indeed. When we imagine something, do we really see its shape and colour, or just the general sensation of it? After all, the brain doesn't really record images.

 

[baron]

Nope. It would appear you don't understand what the claims are for qualia. Qualia are not mean to be the same as stimulus then reaction. Redness is mean to be something different than certain wavelengths of photons hitting a retina, causing chemical changes and so on. They are meant to explain how we can have an "experience" of redness aside from the perception of red. As me and other folk demonstrate even if they exist they are not a requirement for consciousness. Of course so far no one has demonstrated that they do exist.

Look out the window. What you experience is qualia. I promise you this.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

There's just too many straw men, personal insults, evasions, and disingenuous statements in that last post to even bother with. It's a shame, baron, that you don't have any interest in trying to honestly discuss your belief, especially given that you claim to have put so much time and effort into formulating it.

You've browbeaten me into submission. You can count that as a "win", if you like.

 

[Belz...]

Look out the window. What you experience is qualia. I promise you this.

What's the difference between "qualia" and "experience", then?