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Consciousness: what do we know?

Tricky said:
Temperature is a measure of matter, i.e. the motion of atoms. All measurements are concepts, not "things" in and of themselves, just as numbers aren't "things".
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Right. Numbers are actually my favorite example of non-material objects. They exist, but have no material properties. We even classify them into real and imaginary, rational and irrational. If you are willing to accept that concepts as numbers and temperature exist but have no material properties in and of themselves (that is, they are not as you said above "things"), you are accepting that certain concepts exist without being comprised of matter.

The question then becomes not, "does anything matterless exist?" but rather whether such concepts as 'love', 'justice', and 'consciousness' also fit into the category of matterless concepts?
 
Beth said:
Right. Numbers are actually my favorite example of non-material objects. They exist, but have no material properties. We even classify them into real and imaginary, rational and irrational. If you are willing to accept that concepts as numbers and temperature exist but have no material properties in and of themselves (that is, they are not as you said above "things"), you are accepting that certain concepts exist without being comprised of matter.

The question then becomes not, "does anything matterless exist?" but rather whether such concepts as 'love', 'justice', and 'consciousness' also fit into the category of matterless concepts?
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Wrong. The concepts of numbers exist - in other words, the biochemical processes within the brain that relate to quantity exist. These are things consisting of matter. Numbers, themselves, do not exist at all.

This is exactly similar to Santa Claus. I sincerely doubt, Beth, that you're going to claim that Santa exists. But the CONCEPT of Santa, including his attributes, qualities, etc., do exist - as biochemical brain processes.

This is yet another woo case where ignorance of what a thing is leads to the absolutely wrong conclusion.
 
So, our imaginations are the world of the conceptual but, anything that is imaginary doesn't exist?
 
zaayrdragon said:
Wrong. The concepts of numbers exist - in other words, the biochemical processes within the brain that relate to quantity exist. These are things consisting of matter. Numbers, themselves, do not exist at all.

This is exactly similar to Santa Claus. I sincerely doubt, Beth, that you're going to claim that Santa exists. But the CONCEPT of Santa, including his attributes, qualities, etc., do exist - as biochemical brain processes.

This is yet another woo case where ignorance of what a thing is leads to the absolutely wrong conclusion.
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I don't think it is ultimately testable, but my feeling is that you are wrong in this, in a fairly petty way (on my part, not yours). The concept of numbers, or Santa Claus, exist as an emergent property of the manner in which we use our symbolic language. But to say that they exist as brain processes is, I think, misleading. There is no reason to think that any particular configuration of neural activity means "Santa Claus" for more than one person. Indeed, unique learning histories would imply that each person's neural representation of "Santa Claus" is unique. The similarity that allows us to recognise numbers or Santas is in our language symbols, not in our brains.
 
Beth said:
The question then becomes not, "does anything matterless exist?" but rather whether such concepts as 'love', 'justice', and 'consciousness' also fit into the category of matterless concepts?
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Love is an energy. Rage is a type of energy. Energies can be categorized according to their origin ... heaven and hell for example.
 
Mercutio said:
I don't think it is ultimately testable, but my feeling is that you are wrong in this, in a fairly petty way (on my part, not yours). The concept of numbers, or Santa Claus, exist as an emergent property of the manner in which we use our symbolic language. But to say that they exist as brain processes is, I think, misleading. There is no reason to think that any particular configuration of neural activity means "Santa Claus" for more than one person. Indeed, unique learning histories would imply that each person's neural representation of "Santa Claus" is unique. The similarity that allows us to recognise numbers or Santas is in our language symbols, not in our brains.
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Numbers physically exist.

I have 3 pigs - they are material pigs and I count them one two three.
I record that I have 3 pigs - the ink of my 3 character is written in physical ink.

This is what numbers were invented to record - they are physical and real. Without human business they do not exist.
 
hodgy said:
Numbers physically exist.

I have 3 pigs - they are material pigs and I count them one two three.
I record that I have 3 pigs - the ink of my 3 character is written in physical ink.

This is what numbers were invented to record - they are physical and real. Without human business they do not exist.
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Pigs physically exist.

The "three" that is the same thing that counts your pigs or my cats, that concept has no physical existence, but rather emerges from our generalization from pigs, cats, apples, smileys :crowded: or whatever.

I find the juxtaposition of your first and last sentences rather odd. Water exists with or without humans. Iron Pyrite exists with or without humans. (of course, our symbolic labels for these things, which we list in dictionaries, exist only as concepts...) There is a meaningful difference, I would think, between things that really exist, and concepts with a metaphorical existence.

This is precisely why I have said before on this forum that a particular comment or question "depends on your definition of 'exists'". It does.
 
Beth said:
Right. Numbers are actually my favorite example of non-material objects. They exist, but have no material properties. We even classify them into real and imaginary, rational and irrational. If you are willing to accept that concepts as numbers and temperature exist but have no material properties in and of themselves (that is, they are not as you said above "things"), you are accepting that certain concepts exist without being comprised of matter.

The question then becomes not, "does anything matterless exist?" but rather whether such concepts as 'love', 'justice', and 'consciousness' also fit into the category of matterless concepts?
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A description of matter is not the same as the matter itself. Oh - and a description is a physical thing.
 
hodgy said:
A description of matter is not the same as the matter itself. Oh - and a description is a physical thing.
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The paper a description is written on is physical. The soundwaves of a spoken description are physical. But neither is the real meat of a description. I would have to be convinced that a description is indeed physical; I do not agree at present.
 
Mercutio said:
The paper a description is written on is physical. The soundwaves of a spoken description are physical. But neither is the real meat of a description. I would have to be convinced that a description is indeed physical; I do not agree at present.
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In what way could a description not be physical?
 
A description implies state - if you describe something, you effectively describe how it is different from something else. You define its physical constitution.
 
Beth said:
Right. Numbers are actually my favorite example of non-material objects. They exist, but have no material properties. We even classify them into real and imaginary, rational and irrational. If you are willing to accept that concepts as numbers and temperature exist but have no material properties in and of themselves (that is, they are not as you said above "things"), you are accepting that certain concepts exist without being comprised of matter.

The question then becomes not, "does anything matterless exist?" but rather whether such concepts as 'love', 'justice', and 'consciousness' also fit into the category of matterless concepts?
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Oh yes indeed. I've just posted in the newest "free will" thread that I think free will is another matterless concept. It is only when we try to imbue these concepts with physical properties that we run into trouble.

I suppose the next question would be "Is God a matterless concept?"
 
zaayrdragon said:
And that's really one of those 'faith' issues. The one dividing point, possibly, between a materialist and everyone else. I'm not, essentially, a materialist; but I do accept that qualia, whatever you think they are, really are meaningless as a category of thing. -- snip --
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So you believe it exists, but you think it is "meaningless"... I'm not sure if I understand you. What is the physical evidence or physical theory for qualia?? Can you give a general description at least of how brain physics logically implies the existence of qualia?

OK, you caught me in one of my own premises. IMHO, 'consciousness' is nothing but the processing of sensory information....
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Wait, please define information in physical terms.

In other words, I see absolutely nothing in 'consciousness' that is unique to human kind or animal kind in general.
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Mind clearing up what contradiction you saw?

You're not being very clear about what it is you think qualia is or whether you even believe it exists. Let's start there and come to some agreement on what it is we're actually talking about. You say consciousness is a meaningless concept; are you denying it exists, labelling it as 'meaningless' in the context of your question or both?

I saw it - and it doesn't prove much of anything. First, it starts with a completely contradictory definition for non-physical, then goes into the process of internal information processing.
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There is that word again "information". People talk about information like they know what it is, but do we really know what it is? Do you know what it is? Can you give even a basic, watered down, physical description of "information" without breaking any rules of logic? Try it and I guarantee you will run into will logical inconsistencies, which I will point out and hopefully help you resolve.
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Mercutio said:
I don't think it is ultimately testable, but my feeling is that you are wrong in this, in a fairly petty way (on my part, not yours). The concept of numbers, or Santa Claus, exist as an emergent property of the manner in which we use our symbolic language. But to say that they exist as brain processes is, I think, misleading. There is no reason to think that any particular configuration of neural activity means "Santa Claus" for more than one person. Indeed, unique learning histories would imply that each person's neural representation of "Santa Claus" is unique. The similarity that allows us to recognise numbers or Santas is in our language symbols, not in our brains.
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Let me elaborate even further on that, if you don't mind, Mercutio.

There is no reason to think any particular configuration of neural activity constitutes a thing such as the concept of Santa Claus because we cannot exrapolate the idea of "Santa Claus" logically from the physics in the brain, no matter how accurate our mathematical or visual schematic of the brain is. It doesn't matter how closely you zoon in on the neurons or from what angle they are viewed they will never lead to the logical conclusion that any 'concept' or 'idea' exists there.. or a 'mind'. Like-wise a human being is just a collection of atoms, but for some reason, we like to super-impose a 'mind' onto this collection of atoms and not another regardless of the fact there is no physical evidence of a 'mind' in there. But nay, materialists KNOW the mind is there, they have a "physical theory", they just don't know what it is! This is what I find remarkable.

We know the mind is there, but not because we have a physical theory that logically implies it's existence, we know because we percieve it directly. How does that happen? We don't know. Does it happen? Yes it does.
 
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