Are You Conscious?

[Jeff Corey]

"Should" implies duty or necessity.

Would you please describe these behaviors without reference to either internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind?

What behaviors? Necessity and duty are nouns.

 

[Piggy]

We'll forgive you if you can explain precisely why.

The same reason I would find it ridiculous if you claimed to be a maia, or an invisible dragon in Carl Sagan's garage, or a resident of Einstein's invisible elevator.

P-zombies are purely hypothetical beings used as a convenience in philosophical speculation.

If someone actually claims to be one, that's not a claim that needs to be taken seriously.

 

[Darat]

The answer to the question "Are you a man?" when put to me is "Yes".

And just because this is the R&P forum, that doesn't mean that it's not mere empty obstructionism to demand a definition when none is needed to answer a question.

Especially in a case where the task of coming up with a string of English words to define the given term is difficult and contentious.

"Aha!" I can hear you say, "You admit it's contentious... which means you admit that we need a definition."

...snip...

I've answered (and on this forum in the past) to the question "Are you a man" with a "Not as is defined by group X" (this is generally in a a discussion when someone wants to assert that there are "manly traits" - which usually means male chauvinism!)

Piggy - in this thread you are simply wrong, this is in fact a continuation of the perennial discussion that takes place here about consciousness, it does not stand on its own and within its context the only sensible and rational answer is, as Z has stated, "it depends".

 

[Piggy]

I don't know, when I was doing crisis work and had a variable schedule and sleep disturbance, there were some times I am not sure I met the criteria fully.

Are you claiming to actually be in such a state when responding to the OP on this forum?

 

[Darat]

...snip...

If someone actually claims to be one, that's not a claim that needs to be taken seriously.

Yet I do claim to be one as it is defined - I have no access to these mysterious "qualia" yet I seem to others (well on the whole) to be indistinguishable from other people that they consider to be conscious.

 

[Piggy]

Let me put that a little differently: I don't think the concept of consciousness is coherent.

If you asked me: do you a have a soul? Do I need to answer yes?
I would, I think, suggest that the concept of a soul is an old and outdated idea that, while good at explaining some of our experience of the world, is actually contrary to reality.

And I think that the idea of consciousness has just the same problems.

Of course, if you defined a soul as "that which makes you who you are" or something, then I'd say yes: I have particular qualities about the structure of my brain, my body, my DNA, my memories, whatever, that make me who I am. So, in that way, sure, I have a soul.
Similarly if you say that consciousness means "being aware of some particular things" then yes, I'm conscious. But I don't think that's what you or Malerin mean. So, my answer has to be no, because I don't think that the idea of consciousness that you have represents a real thing.

And I don't think that you're argument that "obviously you're conscious" is a good one. Personally I think that we need to examine the world to know something about it, not rely on what seems obvious. Neuroscience, in my opinion, makes the idea of consciousness less and less appealing with each advance.

It's actually making it more coherent.

A new paper suggests that four specific, separate processes combine as a "signature" of conscious activity. By studying the neural activity of people who are presented with two different types of stimuli – one which could be perceived consciously, and one which could not – Dr. Gaillard of INSERM and colleagues, show that these four processes occur only in the former, conscious perception task.

This new work addresses the neural correlates of consciousness at an unprecedented resolution, using intra-cerebral electrophysiological recordings of neural activity. These challenging experiments were possible because patients with epilepsy who were already undergoing medical procedures requiring implantation of recording electrodes agreed to participate in the study. The authors presented them with visually masked and unmasked printed words, then measured the changes in their brain activity and the level of awareness of seeing the words. This method offers a unique opportunity to measure neural correlates of conscious access with optimal spatial and temporal resolutions. When comparing neural activity elicited by masked and unmasked words, they could isolate four converging and complementary electrophysiological markers characterizing conscious access 300 ms after word perception.

All of these measures may provide distinct glimpses into the same distributed state of long-distance reverberation. Indeed, it seems to be the convergence of these measures in a late time window (after 300 ms), rather than the mere presence of any single one of them, which best characterizes conscious trials. "The present work suggests that, rather than hoping for a putative unique marker – the neural correlate of consciousness – a more mature view of conscious processing should consider that it relates to a brain-scale distributed pattern of coherent brain activation," explained neuroscientist Lionel Naccache, one of the authors of the paper.

As usual, philosophy gets left in a cloud of its own rhetorical dust while science actually figures out what's going on.

Every one of us moves in and out of conscious states every day.

And every one of us has the experience of being conscious of some things that our senses pick up, and not conscious of others.

Consciousness isn't some dicey concept like the soul that's threatened with being pushed out of legitimacy or acceptance, or shown to be empty.

It's one of the basic and important functions of our brains. In fact, our brains use up a good deal of resources to maintain it.

Unlike the soul, consciousness actually has an energy signature.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

And while these various types of zombies may be useful for philosophical hypotheticals,
...snip....

But that is what this thread is all about! That's the bit you seem to have missed.

 

[Piggy]

Yet I do claim to be one as it is defined - I have no access to these mysterious "qualia" yet I seem to others (well on the whole) to be indistinguishable from other people that they consider to be conscious.

So... you claim to be something that is indistinguishable in all respects to every other normal human being. Which means you claim to be someone who is conscious while you participate on this forum. So your answer to "Are you conscious?" is "Yes".

Ok then.

 

[Piggy]

I remember once getting a PM from a Member apologising for some posts they had made - and it went along the line of "Sorry for the posts I apparently made last night, I was on some very strong medication and I didn't even know I'd posted".

So they could have responded in this thread yet according to them they were not concious of doing so.

Are you saying they were unconscious at the time, or that they had no memory of having posted?

Secondly, are you claiming to be in an unconscious state while posting?

 

[Piggy]

I've answered (and on this forum in the past) to the question "Are you a man" with a "Not as is defined by group X" (this is generally in a a discussion when someone wants to assert that there are "manly traits" - which usually means male chauvinism!)

Piggy - in this thread you are simply wrong, this is in fact a continuation of the perennial discussion that takes place here about consciousness, it does not stand on its own and within its context the only sensible and rational answer is, as Z has stated, "it depends".

If you are, in fact, a man, then when someone asks "Are you a man?" the answer must be "Yes". If someone else says you're not, then they're wrong, and their being wrong doesn't mean you now have to answer "Damned if I know."

As for attempting to drag other threads into it, I suppose you can do that if you like, but that doesn't change the fact that we are, in fact, conscious human beings if we're participating on this forum, and that p-zombies are a hypothetical convenience.

 

[Mercutio]

If you are, in fact, a man, then when someone asks "Are you a man?" the answer must be "Yes". If someone else says you're not, then they're wrong, and their being wrong doesn't mean you now have to answer "Damned if I know."

Real men keep their women subservient, and beat them soundly if they dare to speak up. Real men urinate against walls, in public. Real men are racist, sexist, homophobic, red-blooded males.

Are you a man?

As for attempting to drag other threads into it, I suppose you can do that if you like, but that doesn't change the fact that we are, in fact, conscious human beings if we're participating on this forum, and that p-zombies are a hypothetical convenience.

Context matters. You are quite simply wrong.

 

[Piggy]

Are you a man?

Yeah, I'm a man. What you think of as a real man doesn't matter to me. My answer to the simple unqualified question "Are you a man?" has to be "Yes".

Do you know how many legs a dog has if you call a tail a leg?

Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

 

[Mercutio]

Yeah, I'm a man. What you think of as a real man doesn't matter to me. My answer to the simple unqualified question "Are you a man?" has to be "Yes".
Do you know how many legs a dog has if you call a tail a leg?

Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Calling it a simple unqualified question does not make it one.

 

[Piggy]

Context matters. You are quite simply wrong.

Yes, context matters, but what is our context here?

If you believe Malerin is being dishonest and that he's going to pull some rhetorical trick, then why not simply say "I'm not going to answer that because you're just going to pull a silly rhetorical trick so it's a waste of my time"?

That would be the honest response.

I mean, come on, Merc, you know that I've dealt with those very same kinds of tricks elsewhere, so I know perfectly well what they are.

That doesn't change the fact that we're all conscious human beings, which means the answer to the OP is "Yes" for everybody here.

Your suspicions about what Malerin intends to say about that answer are immaterial, as are other threads.

 

[Piggy]

Calling it a simple unqualified question does not make it one.

No, the fact that it is a simple unqualified question is what makes it one.

You were asking a different question from the one I used as an example.

Your question was something like "If a real man does all these things, are you a man?" which is an entirely different example.

By "simple" and "unqualified", I merely meant the 4 word question I originally used as an example, rather than your entirely different example with all the qualifiers added on.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Real men keep their women subservient, and beat them soundly if they dare to speak up. Real men urinate against walls, in public. Real men are racist, sexist, homophobic, red-blooded males.

Are you a man?

Context matters. You are quite simply wrong.

I thought they just didn't eat quiche? I have to urinate against walls in public now? Damn I need to find the rule book.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes, context matters, but what is our context here?

Darat has addressed that. The two major clues are A) this is the R&P subforum, and B) the OP mentioned P-Zombies specifically. This is, as Darat pointed out, a continuation of a series of threads reaching back to the beginnings of the forum.

If you believe Malerin is being dishonest and that he's going to pull some rhetorical trick, then why not simply say "I'm not going to answer that because you're just going to pull a silly rhetorical trick so it's a waste of my time"?

I don't doubt Malerin's honesty. I thought Interesting Ian was straightforward and honest on the same subject years ago, and my answer was the same then.

That would be the honest response.

Not for me, it would not.

I mean, come on, Merc, you know that I've dealt with those very same kinds of tricks elsewhere, so I know perfectly well what they are.

That doesn't change the fact that we're all conscious human beings, which means the answer to the OP is "Yes" for everybody here.

Clearly, no. You have several people here falsifying your claim; you simply choose to either ignore them or disparage their motives.

Your suspicions about what Malerin intends to say about that answer are immaterial, as are other threads.

Which still leaves the mention of P-Zombies in the OP, which still leaves my answer as "no". Barring that mention, my answer would have to be "maybe".

 

[Mercutio]

No, the fact that it is a simple unqualified question is what makes it one.

You were asking a different question from the one I used as an example.

Your question was something like "If a real man does all these things, are you a man?" which is an entirely different example.

By "simple" and "unqualified", I merely meant the 4 word question I originally used as an example, rather than your entirely different example with all the qualifiers added on.

The P-Zombie mention in the OP is a very serious qualifier. If we add to it the 7-year history of R&P debate (which, contrary to your assertion, is quite arguably part of the current context; these threads do not arise in a vacuum), there is sufficient reason for those who disagree with dualistic definitions of consciousness to answer something other than "yes".

 

[Mercutio]

I thought they just didn't eat quiche? I have to urinate against walls in public now? Damn I need to find the rule book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo3o4nfiG7A

It's a helluva rule book.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo3o4nfiG7A

It's a helluva rule book.

Hilarious. Poe's law reigns supreme!