proto-consciousness field theory

[baron]

Brain = conciousness

1 thing

Brain + consciousness field = consciousness

2 things

How can the brain be consciousness? The brain is a piece of meat, you can hold it in your hands (not your own brain, I advise). You can't hide one of your entities on that sneaky basis.

In addition, you've misrepresented what I quoted. The options are:

A) Consciousness does not exist. Entities are

1. Brain

B) Consciousness exists but is a direct product of the brain. Entities are

1. Brain
2. Consciousness

C) Consciousness exists as an independent substrate. Entities are

1. Brain
2. Conscious Field

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Qualia is a case of special pleading

Can you elaborate, please?

 

[baron]

It isn't a gap, it is something extra that shouldn't be there.

No matter how much they find out about the brain, it will still be the case that whatever they find could all happen if there were no feelings of pain, feelings of pleasure, the experience of taste etc, accompanying it.

And that is what the Hard Problem deals with. We could track and monitor the activities of every single sub-atomic particle, every electrical impulse, every chemical molecule, and we would be no nearer to identifying the source or nature of experience or indeed to evidencing that it even exists.

 

[Robin]

How do you know that?

Do you mean that we might find cases where physics fails to work properly if there is not a feeling of pain?

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[Chanakya]

At this point, it may be helpful to define 'exists'.

After all mirages exist, in a sense. They are real, in a purely subjective sense.

It is when objecticity intrudes, when objective measures are asked for, that we are compelled to treat mirages as illusions.

 

[baron]

At this point, it may be helpful to define 'exists'.

After all mirages exist, in a sense. They are real, in a purely subjective sense.

It is when objecticity intrudes, when objective measures are asked for, that we are compelled to treat mirages as illusions.

I'm using it to mean detectable, in theory, by physical equipment.

 

[Robin]

Whatever we find out about how the brain works will be entirely explicable by the laws of physics and feelings of pain etc are nowhere in that explanation.

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[baron]

Whatever we find out about how the brain works will be entirely explicable by the laws of physics and feelings of pain etc are nowhere in that explanation.

They're in mine. So that's another plus point for it.

 

[Robin]

At this point, it may be helpful to define 'exists'.

After all mirages exist, in a sense. They are real, in a purely subjective sense.

It is when objecticity intrudes, when objective measures are asked for, that we are compelled to treat mirages as illusions.

Veterans of the old Richard Dawkins forum will know that "exists" means "capable of being a relatum in a property exemplification nexus"

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[Squeegee Beckenheim]

On the other hand when we say "I am feeling pain", we are not referring to neural activity, we are referring to a feeling.

Why do you assume there is a difference between a feeling and neural activity?

People were feeling pain millenia before anyone had every heard of a neuron.

That doesn't mean they weren't describing neural activity. People were experiencing earthquakes before they'd heard of tectonic plates, but that doesn't mean they weren't experiencing the effect caused by the movement of those plates.

All neural activity can be explained in the absence of any of that.

Since our understanding of neural activity is rudimentary and nascent, on what do you base this statement?

 

[Robin]

Why do you assume there is a difference between a feeling and neural activity?

Because, as I said, the neural activity can be explained completely without there being such a thing as a feeling.

Since our understanding of neural activity is rudimentary and nascent, on what do you base this statement?

Do you think that we will find some neural activity that is not capable of being explained entirely by the laws of physics?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Because, as I said, the neural activity can be explained completely without there being such a thing as a feeling.

Why do you believe this to be true?

Do you think that we will find some neural activity that is not capable of being explained entirely by the laws of physics?

No, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can explain all neural activity without any reference to feelings. You can explain the firing of neurons, but that's not the same thing in the same way that you can explain what's physically happening with the component parts of a working clockwork watch without referring to time but you're not explaining the activity of a watch. The physics describing the component parts of something is not necessarily the same as describing the entire thing.

 

[Darat]

And that is what the Hard Problem deals with. We could track and monitor the activities of every single sub-atomic particle, every electrical impulse, every chemical molecule, and we would be no nearer to identifying the source or nature of experience or indeed to evidencing that it even exists.

Yep, same problem with finding the run when a person is running.

 

[Robin]

Why do you believe this to be true?

Let's get this clear, you are asking me why I believe that any physical object can be entirely explained by the laws of physics.

No, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can explain all neural activity without any reference to feelings. You can explain the firing of neurons, but that's not the same thing in the same way that you can explain what's physically happening with the component parts of a working clockwork watch without referring to time but you're not explaining the activity of a watch. The physics describing the component parts of something is not necessarily the same as describing the entire thing.

If you have all the parts of a watch as described by physics in the arrangement of a watch then you will have a watch. Saying otherwise is contradictory.

Similarly if you have the parts of a brain in the arrangement of a brain then you will have a brain.

However there is no contradiction in saying that there could be all the parts of a brain as described by physics in the arrangement of a brain experiencing pain, but that there is no feeling of pain bring experienced. The physical laws all work fine without bringing in the hypothesis of a feeling of pain.

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[baron]

Yep, same problem with finding the run when a person is running.

Nope, because the 'run' is not self-aware. There is nothing other than mechanical motion. The 'run' does not exist as an entity any more than flolloping does, or any member of a set of infinite descriptors we could use to describe any set of mechanical actions. The 'run' is not sat there thinking, "Gee, this is weird, I feel that I exist but I can't pinpoint my physical origins." The legs aren't thinking that either, they're just moving. It's a total false equivalence.

 

[Darat]

How can the brain be consciousness? The brain is a piece of meat, you can hold it in your hands (not your own brain, I advise). You can't hide one of your entities on that sneaky basis.



In addition, you've misrepresented what I quoted. The options are:



A) Consciousness does not exist. Entities are

1. Brain
   

B) Consciousness exists but is a direct product of the brain. Entities are

1. Brain
   
2. Consciousness
   

C) Consciousness exists as an independent substrate. Entities are

1. Brain
   
2. Conscious Field
   

What the brain does amongst many other thing is consciousness (to simplyfy the discussion think of brain to mean the totallity of our sensorium and the stuff stuffed into out skull.) Consciousness is just what the brain does. Can't see what is mysterious or esoteric about that.

All you seem to be doing is wanting consciousness to be something other than what the brain does. You'll need to provide evidence that we need more than the brain for consciousness.

I can provide quite strong evidence that the only thing we need for consciousness is an undamaged brain. (And that damaging the brain alters consciousness. Like removing muscles from a leg will alter running.)

There is simply no reason and more importantly no evidence so far to think we need anything other than the brain for consciousness, just like there is no need for us to speculate there is a running field our muscles tap into to.

 

[Darat]

Do you mean that we might find cases where physics fails to work properly if there is not a feeling of pain?

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No.

 

[Darat]

Whatever we find out about how the brain works will be entirely explicable by the laws of physics and feelings of pain etc are nowhere in that explanation.

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Then it wouldn't be a full explanation.

 

[baron]

What the brain does amongst many other thing is consciousness (to simplyfy the discussion think of brain to mean the totallity of our sensorium and the stuff stuffed into out skull.) Consciousness is just what the brain does. Can't see what is mysterious or esoteric about that.

It's not mysterious, it's just wrong. We know most of what the brain does, and we can imagine knowing what the rest does. We understand blood flow in the brain, electrical and chemical impulses and the like, and once our instruments become sensitive enough we will in theory be able to monitor the exact behaviour of every single subatomic particle in the brain. None of that will get us one inch further towards understanding what consciousness is.

My theory, on the other hand, doesn't rely on the brain to reveal the secrets of consciousness, any more than the structure of a rock reveals the secrets of gravity.

All you seem to be doing is wanting consciousness to be something other than what the brain does. You'll need to provide evidence that we need more than the brain for consciousness.

Why?

I can provide quite strong evidence that the only thing we need for consciousness is an undamaged brain. (And that damaging the brain alters consciousness. Like removing muscles from a leg will alter running.)

I guarantee that you can't. You're operating on a logical fallacy. I know the kind of thing you'd produce but it doesn't show what you think it does, any more than smashing a TV disproves the idea of radio waves.

There is simply no reason and more importantly no evidence so far to think we need anything other than the brain for consciousness, just like there is no need for us to speculate there is a running field our muscles tap into to.

There's no evidence either way. You have no evidence, I have no evidence. But what my theory does have is the ability to explain what consciousness might be in terms of an actual entity. You are simply saying it exists but it's like running... which doesn't actually exist. That makes no sense.

 

[Darat]

No I have evidence that consciousness is what a brain does, you claim it doesn't, I can show you brains in alsorts of conditions that change consciousness. You may not accept that evidence, but it is there. Your consciousness field is not only completely unevidenced but has to be supernatural, I. E. both capable of interacting with the universe but not being detectable. We have absolutely no reason to believe that such a field *could* never mind does exist.

We simply have no need for your “consciousness of the gaps “ field, until there is evidence for it I don't see why we should even consider it as a potential “answer" to what is consciousness. Even more so when of course it doesn't even explain or demonstrate what consciousness is or how it arises.