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Explain consciousness to the layman.

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westprog said:
Seems impossible. Yet here we are.
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I've been talking about the definition of the word which you seem reluctant to supply and this post is just another dodge.
 
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tsig said:
I've been talking about the definition of the word which you seem reluctant to supply and this post is just another dodge.
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Like your sidetrack, JAQing around. No matter, JREF cohorts applaud you for your "skepticism".

Not very helpful. Nor is this post.
 
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Given a causal narrative constructed from information in memory, and a system able to evaluate such a narrative, consciousness could just be the presence of the evaluator as an element (remembered actor) in the causal narrative being evaluated.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
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AlBell said:
Like your sidetrack, JAQing around. No matter, JREF cohorts applaud you for your "skepticism".

Not very helpful. Nor is this post.
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How is it JAQing around to ask for a definition of a word that another poster used?

If your post isn't helpful then why hit the submit key?
 
Can we start with a definition of consciousness?
The word has myriad meanings.
1. The opposite of un-conscious. Un-conscious is actually much easier to define as the state of a living human brain when either asleep or comatose.
2. Awareness, of self, or (2b) of sensory inputs.
3. "Executive control", or the decision making functions,
4. The active focus of attention,
and others.
Probably what you want to talk about is the subjective feeling of being alive, trapped within a body, surrounded by a world which you are aware of through your senses and interact with through your various appendages, and which you "think" about by manipulating neural representations of it's content. This "feeling" has many components which need to be examined in isolation and then can easily be shown to all be dependent on the structure and function of the nervous system. This is why "consciousness" is said to be an emergent property of the brain. Any feature of consciousness you examine in detail proves to be nothing more than a brain function, and yet we all have this "feeling" of being ourselves.
 
tsig said:
How is it JAQing around to ask for a definition of a word that another poster used?
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I assume you are conscious and have as good an idea of what it as anyone else; you define it.

Anyway your buddies here give you props for doing so.

If your post isn't helpful then why hit the submit key?
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Same reason you again did, I suppose.
 
AlBell said:
I assume you are conscious and have as good an idea of what it as anyone else; you define it.

Anyway your buddies here give you props for doing so.


Same reason you again did, I suppose.
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We were discussing the definition of the word "qualia" so you have missed the point of the whole exchange that you decided to post about.

Now that you know that do you have a definition for the word "qualia".
 
MuDPhuD said:
Can we start with a definition of consciousness?
The word has myriad meanings.
1. The opposite of un-conscious. Un-conscious is actually much easier to define as the state of a living human brain when either asleep or comatose.
2. Awareness, of self, or (2b) of sensory inputs.
3. "Executive control", or the decision making functions,
4. The active focus of attention,
and others.
Probably what you want to talk about is the subjective feeling of being alive, trapped within a body, surrounded by a world which you are aware of through your senses and interact with through your various appendages, and which you "think" about by manipulating neural representations of it's content. This "feeling" has many components which need to be examined in isolation and then can easily be shown to all be dependent on the structure and function of the nervous system. This is why "consciousness" is said to be an emergent property of the brain. Any feature of consciousness you examine in detail proves to be nothing more than a brain function, and yet we all have this "feeling" of being ourselves.
Click to expand...

Consciousness is electrochemical actions of the brain.

As proof of this I have a ball bat that with one blow to the head that disrupts the electrochemical actions will render you what is called unconscious.
 
Consciousness is a "hard problem" invented by theorists to drum up generalized support for international conferences on the nature of consciousness.

Consciousness is caused by the collapse of the quantum wave function. Or maybe the collapse of the quantum wave function is caused by consciousness. Maybe both statements are true, because quantum mechanics is strange. Whatever happens it's at the Planck scale, which is so teeny-tiny that current consciousness theorists are probably safe from rigorous disproof of their hypotheses, which are continually being refined at international conferences.

But then, what the bleep do I know?
 
Minoosh said:
Consciousness is a "hard problem" invented by theorists to drum up generalized support for international conferences on the nature of consciousness.

Consciousness is caused by the collapse of the quantum wave function. Or maybe the collapse of the quantum wave function is caused by consciousness. Maybe both statements are true, because quantum mechanics is strange. Whatever happens it's at the Planck scale, which is so teeny-tiny that current consciousness theorists are probably safe from rigorous disproof of their hypotheses, which are continually being refined at international conferences.

But then, what the bleep do I know?
Click to expand...


About consciousness, apparently very little.

Many years ago, I bought Dennett's Consciousness Explained, in large part because the title really irritated me. It was wonderful. I learned a great deal and had several 'aha!' moments. I've enjoyed reading Dennett since.
 
AlBell said:
Like your sidetrack, JAQing around. No matter, JREF cohorts applaud you for your "skepticism".

Not very helpful. Nor is this post.
Click to expand...

This isn't really a thread about consciousness, yet - it's a thread about consciousness threads. There have been so many, and they all pass through the same stages.
 
MuDPhuD said:
Can we start with a definition of consciousness?
The word has myriad meanings.
1. The opposite of un-conscious. Un-conscious is actually much easier to define as the state of a living human brain when either asleep or comatose.
2. Awareness, of self, or (2b) of sensory inputs.
3. "Executive control", or the decision making functions,
4. The active focus of attention,
and others.
Probably what you want to talk about is the subjective feeling of being alive, trapped within a body, surrounded by a world which you are aware of through your senses and interact with through your various appendages, and which you "think" about by manipulating neural representations of it's content. This "feeling" has many components which need to be examined in isolation and then can easily be shown to all be dependent on the structure and function of the nervous system. This is why "consciousness" is said to be an emergent property of the brain. Any feature of consciousness you examine in detail proves to be nothing more than a brain function, and yet we all have this "feeling" of being ourselves.
Click to expand...

That's the reason that the term "qualia" was invented - to separate the externally observable behaviours from the experience of being conscious. It's the part of consciousness that has no explanation. Hence the necessity of providing a way to bypass the concept.
 
Consciousness is one of the many things that current science barely understands at all.
 
Minoosh said:
Consciousness is caused by the collapse of the quantum wave function. Or maybe the collapse of the quantum wave function is caused by consciousness. Maybe both statements are true, because quantum mechanics is strange.
Click to expand...

Both statements are false, because you don't understand quantum mechanics.
 
westprog said:
That's the reason that the term "qualia" was invented - to separate the externally observable behaviours from the experience of being conscious. It's the part of consciousness that has no explanation. Hence the necessity of providing a way to bypass the concept.
Click to expand...
In the past, explanations like that were considered acceptable. For example, a doctor in training might be asked why morphine makes a patient sleepy and give the accepted answer that it is because it has a "dormative virtue". However, this amounts to saying that morphine tends to make the patient sleepy because morphine tends to make the patient sleepy.

Your talk of "qualia" is exactly like that students talk of "dormative virtue". It's a mere re-naming of the problem presented as though it were an explanation, and no one here is buying it.
 
Irony said:
In the past, explanations like that were considered acceptable. For example, a doctor in training might be asked why morphine makes a patient sleepy and give the accepted answer that it is because it has a "dormative virtue". However, this amounts to saying that morphine tends to make the patient sleepy because morphine tends to make the patient sleepy.

Your talk of "qualia" is exactly like that students talk of "dormative virtue". It's a mere re-naming of the problem presented as though it were an explanation, and no one here is buying it.
Click to expand...

Of course it's not an explanation. It's a statement of the problem, that's all. Qualia is the name of the thing that has to be explained.

The reason for renaming is to avoid the solutions of consciousness that simply redefine the term in a way to make a solution apparent, and leave aside the tricky bits.

What normally follows is the assertion that people who use the term "qualia" are mystics, who believe in magic. Crazy people, who hear voices in their heads.
 
People who use the term "qualia" are mystics, who believe in magic. Crazy people, who hear voices in their heads.
 
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