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Explain consciousness to the layman.

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Mr. Scott said:
Chopra sez (paraphrasing, I hope fairly, from memory):

Consciousness is a property of the universe. Our consciousness is us taking part in this universal consciousness, and it's all done with quantum mechanics, through its indeterminacy and spooky action at a distance.

Does anyone participating in the thread believe this?
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I hope not.
 
Belz... said:
Why ?
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If there's no consciousness, then there's no means for a person to be aware of anything at all existing. And consciousness as an illusion makes no sense because an illusion only exists for a conscious person perceiving it.
 
No, it's called introspection, a technique that was abandoned as fruitless a century ago.
 
westprog said:
Usually I try not to post at those times.

I have no certain knowledge of consciousness I may have had in the past. I just know about the consciousness I have right now. No, now.
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I'm not even sure of that. And neither are you.

Did I? When?
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You said "If the evidence is lacking, it's not scientifically sound to pretend that it's there." as an answer to my question "In fact, how do you know anything is conscious, then ?"

Or are you denying that consciousness exists except within you ?
 
Belz... said:
You said "If the evidence is lacking, it's not scientifically sound to pretend that it's
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the evidence, that is

there." as an answer to my question "In fact, how do you know anything is conscious, then ?"

Or are you denying that consciousness exists except within you ?
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We don't know, as a matter of scientific fact, that consciousness exists in other people. We surmise it, by comparision. There are non-scientific ways of detecting consciousness in other people that are remarkably effective. Much of what human beings do is exchange non-scientific evidence of each other's consciousness.

There's a strange idea very popular on JREF that if you can classify something as non-scientific, that's the same as saying it's useless.This is of course not a scientific belief.
 
Jeff Corey said:
No, it's called introspection, a technique that was abandoned as fruitless a century ago.
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It's scientifically fruitless. It remains the only way to access our own consciousness, and hence consciousness itself. Otherwise we are just monitoring behaviour and pretending to monitor consciousness.
 
Mr. Scott said:
I'm reading the Wiki article on consciousness and it's making me wonder if this thread was ever really necessary :duck:
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The Wiki article on consciousness said:
Neuroscientists are not ready to define consciousness according to Richard Frackowiak and 7 other neuroscientists who published a 1144 page book Human Brain Function ... "We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers... At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed. Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term that can be defined in this way. Currently we all use the term consciousness in many different and often ambiguous ways. Precise definitions of different aspects of consciousness will emerge ... but to make precise definitions at this stage is premature."
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I could have just posted that and added the italics. It seems that neuroscientists aren't quite as united in favour of the computational theory as some posters claimed. There's a surprise. I suspect that this will be taken as proof that Frackowiak et al aren't real neuroscientists, much like Penrose not being a physicist.
 
westprog said:
It seems that neuroscientists aren't quite as united in favour of the computational theory as some posters claimed.
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As a general analogy for how most of the brain works, computational theories are generally well accepted. Though, not everyone agrees that it can also be also the source of consciousness.

However, those who challenge the role of computation in consciousness have to come up with something else to explain it. And I don't recall anyone ever being able to do so.

Meanwhile those who accept the idea that consciousness emerges from computational systems have made some progress in explaining the phenomenon, even if they haven't answered the entire mystery. Dennett's ideas and Damasio's ideas, even if they have flaws, still manage to tell us a lot more about consciousness than the doubters.
 
Wowbagger said:
As a general analogy for how most of the brain works, computational theories are generally well accepted. Though, not everyone agrees that it can also be also the source of consciousness.
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Artificial neural networks function in computers to do things like handwriting recognition. Hence, it would seem that increasing the size of the artificial neural network and adding appropriate IO should be able to produce consciousness.

If not, why not?
 
Mr. Scott said:
Artificial neural networks function in computers to do things like handwriting recognition. Hence, it would seem that increasing the size of the artificial neural network and adding appropriate IO should be able to produce consciousness.

If not, why not?
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It might be a bit more complicated than just size and I/O. There might be particulars in how the neurons are wired to consider, and if the system can collectively sustain the necessary states for the necessary amount of time.

But, in general, yeah: if not, why not?
 
punshhh said:
Yes it would be nice to discuss consciousness in a constructive way.
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Not going happen here if "SRIP" and Church-Turing (hypothesis) doesn't do it for you.

ps. Scary since no one here has a clue what consciousness is, but is 100% sure materialism is the correct ontology.

Emergent property sounds more scientific than goddidit!
 
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AlBell said:
ps. Scary since no one here has a clue what consciousness is, but is 100% sure materialism is the correct ontology.
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Where did you get that 100% sure from? Are you projecting a religious mindset?
Emergent property sounds more scientific than goddidit!
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Emergent property has evidence.
 
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