On Consciousness

[Piggy]

The more you question someone with a weak argument the more insulting they get.

"Weak argument"?

Consider the output of symbolic computation.

Any example you care to consider.

Now, consider your conscious experience.

Do the two resemble one another in any way, shape, or form?

No.

The computationalist position is ridiculous on its face.

If pointing that out is "mean", then I suppose I'm guilty of being mean.

 

[annnnoid]

The point is very simple…and explicit. There is no ‘red’ anywhere except ‘in’ the phenomenological reality that is consciousness.

That is the point.

That there is a phenomenological reality to this thing called consciousness wherein things like ‘red’ occur. The phenomenological reality where ‘red’ occurs is different than the phenomenological reality of…say…neurons…or electro-bio-chemical process…or electro-magnetism…etc. etc.

These things (like ‘red’) are exclusively a function of that explicit reality (consciousness). They do not occur anywhere else. There is no ‘red’ in a tomato, there is no ‘red’ in blood,’ there is no 'red' in a photon, there is no ‘red’ in a stop light, there is no ‘red’ in a neuron or a billion neurons. Somehow…nobody yet knows how…the various biological features of the brain combine to produce a phenomenological condition called consciousness wherein ‘red’ can occur.

IOW…if there is no ‘mind’, there is no ‘red’ (if a tree falls in the forest...there is no sound). The thing that is ‘red’ is exclusively a function of consciousness….NOT a function of a brain (the brain produces the consciousness…the consciousness produces the red [a necessary simplification of course]).

Whether (or how) consciousness is a function of a multitude of different ingredients is simply not definitively known. What is (at least) apparent (to the only thing with the capacity to adjudicate the condition) is that we experience it as a singular unitary reality. Thus...until demonstrated otherwise...it is reasonable to conclude that 'singular unitary reality' somehow describes a fundamental feature of the phenomenon.

The fact that there is a phenomenological reality to human consciousness has been, and still is, the central dilemma of consciousness research. How it’s all produced is a more obvious question…though still just as much of a mystery. The only real reason that the phenomenological reality of consciousness receives somewhat less scientific attention than the ‘how-it-all-works’ issue…is that there is absolutely no way to scientifically adjudicate the phenomenon of consciousness. It can’t be weighed, measured, quantified, calculated, predicted, falsified, etc. etc. The only thing that has the capacity to analyze consciousness….is itself (another consciousness can adjudicate from a distance...in various ways...to various degrees)..

An interesting juxtaposition presents itself. Each and every set of eyes currently reading this word is a consciousness. You have direct access to the very thing that everyone on this thread has to admit is not understood. Not just the generic scientific ‘how-does-it-work’ nonsense…but what it is.

Since you are the thing that requires understanding…and you have (quite obviously) direct and (presumably) uncorrupted access to the object of scrutiny …why don’t you understand what it is? Why do you not recognize the reality of your own condition (…’know thyself’ ….not!)?

Is that a rhetorical question?

Is it a scientific question?

There is a ‘phenomenon’. One of the features of this phenomenon is that it has the ability to self-adjudicate (explore the experience of its own condition [or…experience the exploration of its own condition]). For some reason…it lacks the ability to accurately / effectively adjudicate the ability to self-adjudicate. Why? What explains this deficiency / defect?

Interestingly.... data processing (like ‘red’) is….like all ideas… exclusively a function of human consciousness. Whatever model our consciousness creates that represents this thing called data processing…you can be damn sure it bears absolutely no resemblence what-so-ever to whatever-it-is that data processing may actually be (assuming there even is such a thing).

There. Yet another example (one of an infinite number) of something that only occurs within the phenomenological reality of consciousness. ‘Out there’….there may be data processing (or…something). In the mind…there is ONLY the idea of data processing. Nobody…yet has any idea what an ‘idea’ is or how an ‘idea’ is created.

Except…of course…metaphysically. More ideas (or…whatever-they-are).

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm beginning to suspect....

Let me just ask you something, maybe it will cut to the chase.

Do you agree that when you wake up from a dreamless sleep, your brain is doing something that it wasn't doing when you were asleep?

Of course.

Is this the phase in the argument where you pretend to lay your question-begging aside until a more opportune time to sneak it in?

Even a colour blind person sees something, despite not having the same types of photoreceptors as other people, and he learns from others that the colour of leaves is 'green' even if he can actually not distinguish it from red.

As it happens, an old boss of mine was RG colorblind. He once mentioned that he wasn't diagnosed until nearly an adult. Apparently while growing up he'd associated "red" and "green" with dark/light yellow (that's how he described it, at least), the way we might separate navy blue from baby blue. Apparently it worked well enough that no one noticed any difference, until one Christmas when he complimented a family member on their new dark-green "red" sweater.

 

[PixyMisa]

Absurd nonsense. Are you denying that light comes in different wavelengths?

No, he's just redefining the English language until it stops disagreeing with him.

 

[steenkh]

Do you deny that you will feel pain if I jab you with a needle?

Of course not.

Does this mean that pain is a property of needles?

Of course not.

No, pain is a data structure in the brain. Pain is not physical matter like photons, but an interpretation of input from nerves. Light, however, physically exists outside the body, and light has colours. We just use the the same names for the data structures in our heads, and the types of spectrum of light. This comes natural, because for normal people there is a good correspondence between the spectrum of light, and the data structures that we associate with it.

Claiming that colours do not exist physically, is just an attempt to derail a discussion, or at worse, a barren philosophical concept.

So just answer the question and tell me if the light is blue, yellow, green, or gray.

Why should I accept your sophistry? I have already explained the data structures, and how they are formed by the physical input. Each person, colour-blind, normal, or malfunctioning will form some data structures from this input. Each person will see something. You mix the physical properties of the light, and the cultural names of the data structures.

There is absolutely no problem in the same light resulting in different structures inside the head. The names we give the physical colours is a convention based on how a normal person sees them. It is culturally based because not all cultures use the same colours in everyday language. An RG colour-blind person will call the colours the same (as you have heard above), and a quadrochromatical woman will likewise call the colours the same. A drunkard might describe a pink elephant, and we will all refer to the 'pink' data structure, and know what range of physical colours he is talking about.

You can train people to see more colours, for instance by taking painting classes. That does not mean that the light has changed, but that people associate more differentiated data structures with it.

 

[Belz...]

The point is very simple…and explicit. There is no ‘red’ anywhere except ‘in’ the phenomenological reality that is consciousness.

And yet very simple life forms can tell colours apart and react to them. Do they see red without consciousness ?

In any event, yes, "red" is can be seen as an interpretation by your nervous system. So what ? Piggy is still looking for an extra element that probably isn't there, but that he is insisting must be.

 

[Mr. Scott]

"Weak argument"?

Consider the output of symbolic computation.

Any example you care to consider.

Now, consider your conscious experience.

Do the two resemble one another in any way, shape, or form?

No.

The computationalist position is ridiculous on its face.

If pointing that out is "mean", then I suppose I'm guilty of being mean.

The problem I see with your position is that you can't show conscious experience is an output. We only know you see redness because you're telling us you see redness. The output of the brain is the report to the world that redness was seen. The redness in your brain is seen only by your brain, so there's no valid way to think of it as an output.

Since you're not familiar with Dennett's "The Magic of Consciousness" and the subject is interesting to you, I figure you might not mind giving him an hour of your time to see his wonderful lecture on things like the illusion of qualia.

His main point is that the apparent magic of the subjective experience is analogous to a magician's trick. A magician doesn't really cut a lady in half. He just makes it seem like he cuts a lady in half. Likewise, the brain doesn't really produce the quality of redness. It just makes it seem like it produces the quality of redness. That's what he means by the magic of consciousness: magic that's an illusionist's trick, because illusionary magic is the only magic that's real.

The argument is not weak. It's subtle, because we are so infatuated by the illusions our brains create.

 

[Belz...]

Piggy seems to be saying that no amount of scientific probing into the brain can produce what is "red" to us. I mean, we can see the brain work with machines, now. If that's not good enough, then it starts to sound like magic, indeed.

 

[Dancing David]

It is true at this time we can not say why the perception of red is the way we perceive it, but that will probably happen in the next 500 years.

 

[PixyMisa]

"Weak argument"?

Consider the output of symbolic computation.

Any example you care to consider.

Now, consider your conscious experience.

Do the two resemble one another in any way, shape, or form?

Consciousness is not the output of symbolic computation. Consciousness is symbolic computation.

This has been explained several thousand times. Do try to keep up.

 

[Piggy]

Of course.

Is this the phase in the argument where you pretend to lay your question-begging aside until a more opportune time to sneak it in?

My friend, I'm not the one here wanting something for nothing.

Nor am I the one calling physical processes "magic".

But in any case….

So we've agreed that your brain is doing something new when you wake up from a dreamless sleep.

Are we agreed that this "something new" is the generation of a phenomenology, which it was not doing before?

And are we also agreed that this production of phenomenology is what we call consciousness, and that it is the object of the study of how the brain performs consciousness?

 

[annnnoid]

The problem I see with your position is that you can't show conscious experience is an output. We only know you see redness because you're telling us you see redness. The output of the brain is the report to the world that redness was seen. The redness in your brain is seen only by your brain, so there's no valid way to think of it as an output.

Since you're not familiar with Dennett's "The Magic of Consciousness" and the subject is interesting to you, I figure you might not mind giving him an hour of your time to see his wonderful lecture on things like the illusion of qualia.

His main point is that the apparent magic of the subjective experience is analogous to a magician's trick. A magician doesn't really cut a lady in half. He just makes it seem like he cuts a lady in half. Likewise, the brain doesn't really produce the quality of redness. It just makes it seem like it produces the quality of redness. That's what he means by the magic of consciousness: magic that's an illusionist's trick, because illusionary magic is the only magic that's real.

The problem with your position…is that you can’t see the forest for the trees. How is self-report not valid evidence of phenomenological consciousness…aka: output? We experience our condition as a singular unitary condition…the dimensions of which are in direct proportion to the life we live (psychology…what a dirty word!). Dennett can explain this away till he’s blue in the face. It won’t change the fact that he himself is evidence of what he presumes to dismiss. IOW…until he (or anyone) can provide falsifiable evidence that consciousness is nothing but an enduring deception…the default position stands (a singular unitary phenomenological reality). The default position simply being the normative understanding of the thing as it is known to occur.

Just as we have all kinds of evidence for gravity…but no idea how it occurs…we have all kinds of evidence for consciousness (us)…but no idea how it occurs. Just because it is not possible to directly adjudicate the evidence does not mean that there is no evidence to adjudicate.

But then again…it actually IS possible to directly adjudicate the evidence. Consciousness being the only subject which the scientist does not have to model. The significance of which is often lost on many a scientist (partly because of the implications thereof).

The argument is not weak. It's subtle, because we are so infatuated by the illusions our brains create.

You mean like….the illusion of meaning…or the illusion of intelligence…or the illusion or reason…or the illusion or feelings…or the illusion of purpose…or the illusion of life itself????

“Scientists animated by the purpose of proving themselves purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.”

Perhaps…just perhaps…there is something very significant to actually be infatuated with. There is a great deal of evidence to support this position (the potential dimensions of phenomenological consciousness). Unfortunately…it is either subjective…or anecdotal.

It is true at this time we can not say why the perception of red is the way we perceive it, but that will probably happen in the next 500 years.

What was it the ‘blue-brainers’ said: “…we have but a tiny tiny fraction of what we need…”.

I suppose there may in fact be another here-to-fore unrecognized obstacle. A rather peculiar one at that. The simple possibility that the variety of intelligence we possess is incapable of comprehending paradigms of that order. An ‘other’ epistemology. Not merely metaphysical meanderings by any means as there is a great deal to suggest such a thing….though those firmly rooted in two dimensional banality will respond with unrelenting fury (“it’s all an illusion”). Why should we presume our own POV to be definitive…especially when it is so obviously flawed? We are a thing fundamentally defined by our ability to ‘know’…but nobody (or just about) seems to have the ability to ‘know’ the nature of the thing that we are. How is that not flawed?

If the illusion is anywhere…it is there.

Consciousness is not the output of symbolic computation. Consciousness is symbolic computation.

This has been explained several thousand times. Do try to keep up.

I will be sure and enquire of my tablet as to its disposition before I engage in email activity.

Consciousness IS symbolic computation….and consciousness IS data processing… and consciousness IS information processing.

Consciousness seems to be…everything. We have an entire universe that is… consciousness (is there anything that isn’t information?). A universal consciousness!!!! How interesting. Pixy has become a theist!

 

[Piggy]

No, pain is a data structure in the brain.

I'm sorry, but "data" is (a) an abstraction, and (b) something which requires an observer and an observed. If all humans were wiped out this afternoon, there would no longer be any "data" in the world.

The brain is a physical object, so let's please discuss it in those terms.

In any case, the point is that when you're talking about stuff that exists out there in the world, whether it's a needle or a beam of light, it makes absolutely no sense to say that somehow a brain's response to contact with that thing is a quality of the thing.

Pain is (sometimes, not always) an animal's nervous system's response to contact with a needle.

Color is (sometimes, not always) an animal's nervous system's response to contact with light.

There's no significant difference between the two in that regard.

Also, we've seen that different brains produce different colors in response to the exact same type of light. Therefore, it is impossible for anyone to actually identify which color we should claim to be a property of which wavelength.

Color is not a property of light QED.

Color is not "out there" in the world to be perceived or registered. It is produced entirely by the brain.

And currently, no theory exists to explain the observable fact that our brains respond to various types of light with various colors, rather than some other phenomenological response, or none at all.

There is no theory to explain why light from the sky doesn't result in the brain producing red, or the scent of lemons, or the sound of static.

And you can't say, "Well, that's easy, our brains don't produce the scent of lemons because that's olfactory", because we don't know why that is the olfactory response because there is no "scent of lemons" in the lemons, just as there's no pain in the needle and no color in the light.

 

[Belz...]

My friend, I'm not the one here wanting something for nothing.

But you do want something where there is nothing.

Nor am I the one calling physical processes "magic".

You have proposed no mechanism through which consciousness emerges, and discount the mechanisms already given. What's left if not magic ?

 

[Piggy]

Why should I accept your sophistry? I have already explained the data structures, and how they are formed by the physical input. Each person, colour-blind, normal, or malfunctioning will form some data structures from this input. Each person will see something. You mix the physical properties of the light, and the cultural names of the data structures.

There is absolutely no problem in the same light resulting in different structures inside the head. The names we give the physical colours is a convention based on how a normal person sees them. It is culturally based because not all cultures use the same colours in everyday language. An RG colour-blind person will call the colours the same (as you have heard above), and a quadrochromatical woman will likewise call the colours the same. A drunkard might describe a pink elephant, and we will all refer to the 'pink' data structure, and know what range of physical colours he is talking about.

You can train people to see more colours, for instance by taking painting classes. That does not mean that the light has changed, but that people associate more differentiated data structures with it.

Sophistry?

This isn't sophistry, it's a direct question about direct observation.

And please, stop talking about the names we give things. That is 100% completely irrelevant to the question.

Just answer the question and stop dodging.

We have 4 different brains, each one produces a different color response. And what they call those colors doesn't matter a whit.

Why is it that my brain produces blue and not green, and why is it that my friend with tritanopia's brain produces green and not yellow, and why is it that my friend who at the mushroom's brain produces yellow and not gray, and why is it that my dog's brain produces gray and not blue?

I'm not asking you why we see different colors, full stop. I'm asking you why we see the specific colors that we see. Why does my brain not produce green, specifically?

 

[Belz...]

I'm sorry, but "data" is (a) an abstraction

So is time and space, and yet we still model them and accept that this is how reality works.

and (b) something which requires an observer and an observed. If all humans were wiped out this afternoon, there would no longer be any "data" in the world.

The abstraction would no longer exist, but who cares ?

The brain is a physical object, so let's please discuss it in those terms.

You should tell physicists to stop using those silly abstract symbols to make their equations. It's not like it's going to take them to the moon or anything. Rockets are physical objects, so we should discuss them in those terms.

Color is not a property of light QED.

You've already been explained how it works. It's no one's fault but your own that you want "something else" to explain colour.

 

[Piggy]

The problem I see with your position is that you can't show conscious experience is an output. We only know you see redness because you're telling us you see redness. The output of the brain is the report to the world that redness was seen. The redness in your brain is seen only by your brain, so there's no valid way to think of it as an output.

Now you're getting it.

That's why I don't talk of consciousness in terms of "output".

But you're wrong about how you can know that my brain is performing red. It's not just because I report it -- I can rig up a machine to report "I see red" when it hears C#, for example -- but rather because human beings with similar brains all report it.

Big difference there.

 

[Piggy]

Likewise, the brain doesn't really produce the quality of redness. It just makes it seem like it produces the quality of redness.

I'll try to find time, but there's already a problem here, since there's no difference. Producing the appearance of redness is exactly what it means to produce redness.

 

[Fudbucker]

The problem I see with your position is that you can't show conscious experience is an output. We only know you see redness because you're telling us you see redness. The output of the brain is the report to the world that redness was seen. The redness in your brain is seen only by your brain, so there's no valid way to think of it as an output.

Since you're not familiar with Dennett's "The Magic of Consciousness" and the subject is interesting to you, I figure you might not mind giving him an hour of your time to see his wonderful lecture on things like the illusion of qualia.

His main point is that the apparent magic of the subjective experience is analogous to a magician's trick. A magician doesn't really cut a lady in half. He just makes it seem like he cuts a lady in half. Likewise, the brain doesn't really produce the quality of redness. It just makes it seem like it produces the quality of redness. That's what he means by the magic of consciousness: magic that's an illusionist's trick, because illusionary magic is the only magic that's real.

The argument is not weak. It's subtle, because we are so infatuated by the illusions our brains create.

If you examine that closely, I think it falls apart. The "quality of redness", even if it's a trick, is still an experience of "the quality of redness". And we're back to Piggy's original point: why is there a quality of redness (as opposed to greenness)? Why is there an experience at all? Saying it's a trick of the brain just begs further questions: why does the trick produce "Redness" (as opposed to greenness)? Why does the brain pull a trick like that at all?

I also agree with Piggy that the argument that subjective experience is a cultural artifact (or something along those lines) is not even worth discussing.

ETA: I see Piggy said the same thing above me.

 

[Piggy]

Consciousness is not the output of symbolic computation. Consciousness is symbolic computation.

This has been explained several thousand times. Do try to keep up.

It has been claimed and asserted several times. That's different from having been explained.