My take on why indeed the study of consciousness may not be as simple

[JoeTheJuggler]

Such as?

I think he's trying to say that it's impossible to understand consciousness, therefore no science has anything to say about it. (Though why that idea somehow supports using QM to study consciousness is beyond me! Or is U.E. not one of those defending Penrose?)

Of course, that conclusion ignores the fact that neuroscience has made a great deal of progress in understanding consciousness--or as I've been saying, the specific properties/functions of the brain, such as memory, proprioception, etc. that are collectively referred to as "consciousness".

The basic model of neuroscience is that stimuli come in via specialized sensory cells that convert something in the environment into action potentials. These signals are carried on afferent fibers to the CNS where any number of interneurons (sometimes arranged in very complex connections--and this is where the really cool stuff happens) process the information. Signals from the CNS are carried out via efferent fibers to muscles to cause voluntary motion. This model has proven very robust and has helped us learn quite a bit about consciousness.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You are saying science is stuck with pre-Kantian assumptions

I am saying science is not stuck with pre-Kantian assumptions

I am saying that most of the scientific community is stuck with pre-Kantian assumptions. Science itself is not stuck with pre-Kantian assumptions, but it is stuck with a post-Kantian limit on what it can do. It can only investigate what Kant called "Phenomena", and not even everything about that. It can't investigate whatever it is that causes Phenomena. Something causes Phenomena, right?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I think he's trying to say that it's impossible to understand consciousness, therefore no science has anything to say about it. (Though why that idea somehow supports using QM to study consciousness is beyond me! Or is U.E. not one of those defending Penrose?)

I'm not directly defending Penrose. I am making an entirely different argument to Penrose which happens to also come to the tentative conclusion that there may be a connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics which is not currently recognised by science. I do not have a good enough grasp of mathematics to properly understand the details of Penrose's theory.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm not directly defending Penrose.

Good. Penrose is wrong.

I am making an entirely different argument to Penrose which happens to also come to the tentative conclusion that there may be a connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics which is not currently recognised by science.

Like what?

I do not have a good enough grasp of mathematics to properly understand the details of Penrose's theory.

It's not a question of mathematics, it's a question of physics and neuroscience. Penrose is wrong.

 

[PixyMisa]

Well, the Venus Project seem to think that science can create a post-scarcity society in which there will be no more shortage of goods at al. Just think, I can get that Guanarius violin I've always wanted -- and a mint-condition 1964 Chevy Camaro.

Any number of idealists and science fiction aficionados seem to think that the speed of light is just a guideline instead of a hard limit.

Any number of perpetual motion/free energy types seem to feel the same way about the laws of thermodynamics.

Ah. Idiots.

Of course, one of the key insights you can glean from this list is that very few, if any, of these people are actually practicing scientists; most scientists seem to be, if anything, more aware of the limits of science than the general public. Which makes sense, if you think about it.

Indeed it does.

 

[Dancing David]

Why does that matter?

Its immaterial!

 

[PingOfPong]

There is an undercurrent running here with people on the metaphysics side of this debate insinuating that science is seriously lacking the tools to understand QM, consciousness, and perhaps other things. I'm curious, if anyone would like to field this question, what great insight does metaphysics have for any current science topics?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Its immaterial!

Well done.

But immaterial isn't a verb. . . . (I think it's the name of the fabric the Emperor's new clothes were made of.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm not directly defending Penrose. I am making an entirely different argument to Penrose which happens to also come to the tentative conclusion that there may be a connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics which is not currently recognised by science. I do not have a good enough grasp of mathematics to properly understand the details of Penrose's theory.

So your suggestion that consciousness is something that science can never explain somehow fits in with the idea that QM can explain consciousness?

By the way, what makes you think that consciousness can't be explained by non-QM science? I've been pointing out that neuroscience already has explained quite a lot about the various mental functions that are collectively referred to as consciousness.

Just because there are plenty of questions still to be answered doesn't mean a subject is somehow mysterious or beyond the reach of science.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

There is an undercurrent running here with people on the metaphysics side of this debate insinuating that science is seriously lacking the tools to understand QM, consciousness, and perhaps other things. I'm curious, if anyone would like to field this question, what great insight does metaphysics have for any current science topics?

And I would include in the realm of "current science topics" the very topic of this thread, consciousness.

I asked a similar question a while back--basically looking for evidence of solid knowledge on the phenomenon by asking for practical applications.

Neuroscience continues to yield knowledge leading to practical applications from its research on the mental processes that are collectively called consciousness.

Minor quibble: the way you worded this, you seem to be saying that QM is not in the realm of science. It is a field of study within the science of physics. That's why I don't follow UE's reasoning on this point.

 

[quarky]

I'm late to this argument and had to skim a lot.
I actually read the Penrose book of the o.p., should it matter.

In my opinion, quantum effects enter consciousness rigtht where you expect it:
At the synapse of a neuron. The state of a single electron is implicated in every choice or decision we make. All large motions in a system at stasis can be traced to the state of a single sub-atomic particle. All the action starts with the very small action. To keep qm isolated from the field at large is myopic and delusional.

All effect is quantum effect. Observable phenomena begins with the behavior of its tiniest components, and works its way up to bricks. The idea of the brick, or the decision to throw one or not, originate in the smallest units of brain activity. The difference between yes or no depends on the energy state of a single electron in the neuro-transmiter molecules at the synapse.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm late to this argument and had to skim a lot.
I actually read the Penrose book of the o.p., should it matter.

In my opinion, quantum effects enter consciousness rigtht where you expect it:
At the synapse of a neuron. The state of a single electron is implicated in every choice or decision we make.

No it isn't.

All large motions in a system at stasis can be traced to the state of a single sub-atomic particle.

No they can't.

All the action starts with the very small action.

Perhaps so, but it is very literally impossible to know what that action was.

To keep qm isolated from the field at large is myopic and delusional.

No. It's precisely what quantum mechanics actually tells us.

All effect is quantum effect.

True but irrelevant.

QM simply doesn't matter for most macro-scale systems, except that the laws such systems follow can be derived statistically from QM.

Observable phenomena begins with the behavior of its tiniest components, and works its way up to bricks.

True but irrelevant.

The idea of the brick, or the decision to throw one or not, originate in the smallest units of brain activity.

True but irrelevant.

The difference between yes or no depends on the energy state of a single electron in the neuro-transmiter molecules at the synapse.

False, or at least, almost always false, false in the same way that assuming that your vote matters means that your vote decides the election. (What logical fallacy is that, I wonder?)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

All effect is quantum effect. Observable phenomena begins with the behavior of its tiniest components, and works its way up to bricks.

This is not true. I'm sure you skimmed it, but please re-read some of my posts about emergent properties.

Water's property of wetness, for example, does not exist in any way whatsoever in hydrogen or oxygen. You can not explain wetness by looking at a hydrogen atom (or the subatomic parts thereof).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

False, or at least, almost always false, false in the same way that assuming that your vote matters means that your vote decides the election. (What logical fallacy is that, I wonder?)

It's still the composition fallacy (or its complement, the division fallacy) but by analogy.

If "votes" are taken to be parts of a whole ("election"), then it's wrong to think that in an election won by "yes" any given vote has to have been a "yes" vote, or the other way around, if a given single vote is a "yes" that it means that "yes" certainly won the election.


At any rate, consciousness is not the subject of QM. (It's not even a subject of QM.) It makes no more sense to use QM to try to learn about consciousness than it is to use QM to try to learn about cardio-vascular function or car repair.

 

[PixyMisa]

I took my car to the quantum mechanic, and now I get lost every time I check my speed.

 

[rocketdodger]

There is an undercurrent running here with people on the metaphysics side of this debate insinuating that science is seriously lacking the tools to understand QM, consciousness, and perhaps other things. I'm curious, if anyone would like to field this question, what great insight does metaphysics have for any current science topics?

Interesting that you should ask.

Awhile back there was this dude "hypnopsi" who was convinced there was some kind of "field" that would explain concsiousness. Among other things, he had a fervent belief that current A.I. research was going in the wrong direction (computation, rather than <whatever>) and everyone was wasting their time.

I asked him "what, then, do you think A.I. researchers should be doing instead of what they are doing?" His response was basically "look in the right places."

I then asked him "what are the right places?" and his response was "not the places they are currently looking."

I then asked him "do you have any examples?" and his response was along the lines of "I don't know enough about the subject to provide an example."

I think that is pretty much par for the course when dealing with these "metaphysical" types.

 

[!Kaggen]

Sorry , so far the defintions presented a philosophical definition of conscious lack rigor.

Now of course the use of the term consciousness is idiomatic, which is why the definition is crucial. Some of us believe that it is the crux of the Hard Problem of Consciousness or Penrose's rambling.

A lack of consistent defintion and clarity leads to muddled theory.

The definitions might lack rigor in the same way language lacks rigor, see Wittgenstein.
However its all we have to start with and the problem is not where to start, but are we able to overcome dogma if the scientific tests of these definitions demands that we re-adjust them?

This is the difficulty with consciousness. Not its definition, but what it tells us about ourselves. Like the mirror in Snow White.

 

[!Kaggen]

That is a start, so what is that awareness like, is it the experience of thinking or something else?

When I become aware of thoughts its after these thoughts were created by thinking. In other words, consciousness is something I am only aware of after thinking separates me/subject from my thoughts/object. I am not at this stage implying what they were before thinking only that through thinking I am aware that they are not the same thing. So we do not experience thinking as such only thoughts and thereafter we can reflect (using thinking) on the thinking that created these thoughts and the consciousness which is now aware of them. Of course we could argue that without consciousness thinking would not happen. But we can say nothing of consciousness without thinking, so any reference to pre-thinking consciousness is metaphysics.

Sure you might question thinking as an assumption as Robin does. But why not just continue to question that which questions thinking and so on. Unless of course you announce that consciousness is a metaphysical proposition which is what UE proposes as a solution. In which case any logical discussion about consciousness is impossible- see Wittgenstein again.

Then again you could just ignore consciousness as Randfan/Pixy Misa/Joe TheJuggler/Rocketdodge/PingofPong do and announce that science will give us the proper definition of consciousness once we have created it outside ourselves. This is the metaphysical proposition that science exists a priori to consciousness. The metaphysics only becomes apparent when you start asking how much of "something" do we need to create this consciousness and you are told consciousness does not have to do with "something".

Then David suggests the problem with this approach is the definition of consciousness and we are back were we started.

 

[PixyMisa]

The definitions might lack rigor in the same way language lacks rigor, see Wittgenstein.
However its all we have to start with and the problem is not where to start, but are we able to overcome dogma if the scientific tests of these definitions demands that we re-adjust them?

Then you demand a license to talk nonsense?

You're free to do so. But no-one will listen to you.

This is the difficulty with consciousness. Not its definition, but what it tells us about ourselves.

No.

Like the mirror in Snow White.

No. With cream.

 

[PixyMisa]

When I become aware of thoughts its after these thoughts were created by thinking. In other words, consciousness is something I am only aware of after thinking separates me/subject from my thoughts/object.

No. That's just a mess of illogic and contradictions.

Thinking is information processing.
Consciousness is self-referential information processing.
To put it another way, consciousness is thinking about thinking.

Then again you could just ignore consciousness as Randfan/Pixy Misa/Joe TheJuggler/Rocketdodge/PingofPong do and announce that science will give us the proper definition of consciousness once we have created it outside ourselves.

No, completely wrong. We already have the definition of conscsiousness. We already have created it outside ourselves.

This is the metaphysical proposition that science exists a priori to consciousness.

Baloney.

The metaphysics only becomes apparent when you start asking how much of "something" do we need to create this consciousness and you are told consciousness does not have to do with "something".

No, and no. You asked the wrong question, and you were told you were asking the wrong question.

Do you understand what necessary but not sufficient means?