69dodge,
Why are you assuming that there is anything more to consciousness than these "3rd person perspective facts"?
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That's what people mean by "consciousness," no?
Not that I know of. It certainly isn't what I mean by consciousness. I think that the whole "first person facts vs third person facts" idea is just a rephrasing of the "primary vs secondary qualities" nonsense. There are no first-person facts about the world. There are facts about the world, which are all objective. There are our first-person experiences, which are physical processes taking place in the world, and about which there are objective facts, but which are not "facts about the world" themselves. And finally, there are the facts which we either intuitively or logically infer from those experiences.
You continually say that consciousness is a set of brain processes (or might be, at least). At the risk of exposing myself to all sorts of ridicule, I have to ask, what is your definition of "is"?
In this context, equivalence. I am saying that the word "consciousness" is a label which refers to a set of brain processes.
I wonder if this argument is less about the nature of consciousness and more about the nature of scientific explanation. Perhaps you don't expect as much as Ian does from a scientific explanation of consciousness.
I expect nothing more than what it is possible for a scientific explanation to provide, namely an accurate and comprehensive description, in terms of verifiable physical facts.
Suppose that whenever a certain process occurs in my brain (and only then), I feel hungry. You might discover this correspondence by looking at my brain at various times and asking me whether I feel hungry then. Do you think you could, in principle, discover this in any other way, say by doing some horrendously complicated quantum mechanical calculation, without ever looking at anyone's brain and asking them how they felt at the time?
No. In principle I think that should be possible, but I very much doubt that such a computation could ever be accomplished.
If not, would you still say that you had a complete explanation of hunger "because after all, I understand brain processes, and that brain process is hunger"?
I don't claim to have a complete explanation for anything. We are a very long way from having a complete scientific explanation of consciousness. We may never have one. But that is a far cry from arbitrarily declaring that no explanation is even possible.
Ian might ask, "Well, perhaps it is, using your funny definition of 'is', but why is it? Why should anyone feel hungry, simply because that particular brain process occurs?"
Because your feelings are brain processes, that's why. If you want to know
why things are the way they are, just make up an answer, because science is not going to give you one. If you want to know
how things are, science can tell you that. Right now, science very strongly indicates that consciousness is a set of brain processes.
I'm not sure this type of question is answerable. Science tries to discover how the world is, not why it is that way, because it's not clear that "why it is that way" really means anything to begin with. But saying the question is unanswerable isn't the same as answering it.
I agree. But keep in mind that Ian is not asking us to explain why consciousness is a brain process. He is simply declaring that it absolutely cannot possibly be one.
Ian,
Only if consciousness is not a physical process. You know damn well that this is not what I think.
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You declare conscious experiences are literally the very same thing as physical processes in the brain. Why should anyone choose this option since conscious experiences and brain processes are utterly different from each other, and the proposition is immune from any refutation, even in principle?
1) I do not require anybody to choose that option. That is my position. If you think my position is wrong, whoopie for you. Nobody ever said you have to agree with me. If you think there is a flaw in my position, you will need more than circular arguments to convince me.
2) Brain processes and conscious experiences are not utterly different from each other. In fact, I can find no differences at all. What is different is
your intuitive interpretation of conscious experiences, and brain processes. Your intuition is wrong. Get over it.
If you cannot give any justification for this wild and implausible, and questionably intelligible assertion, why on earth should any person who has any passing acquaintance with reasoning choose to believe it??
Then don't. You have refused to give any consideration to the scientific evidence supporting my position. Given your profound ignorance of said evidence, it is only natural that you should reject such a counter-intuitive hypothesis. But the fact remains that your ignorance of the evidence does not make the evidence not exist. You are wrong, whether you choose to learn enough about the subject to be convinced of the fact or not.
I know why, it's because people are bewitched by the materialist metaphysic. And saying that conscious experiences are literally the very same thing as neurons firing is a wild metaphysical assertion (to put it politely!)
Of course. It could not possibly be that the people who disagree with you know something that you do not. In fact, this possibility is so implausible that there is no reason for you to ever look at any of the evidence that they present to justify their claims. After all, that evidence violates your intuitive beliefs, so it must be wrong too. And of course, the people who think it is valid evidence are just either too stupid to realize how obviously wrong it is, or are brainwashed.
To say that the physical laws are just descriptions of conscious decisions leading to behavior, misses the point. We describe all other physical change in the world completely in terms of physical laws playing out, without any need for consciousness. Therefore we cannot say that in the case of our own behavior that consciousness is required at all. We must judge it to be superfluous.
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Once again, this is not the case if your position is that consciousness is a subset of those physical processes which determine your behavior.
Is it even possible for you to present an argument that doesn't implicitly assume that consciousness is not a set of physical processes?
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You've completely ignored my point so shall paste it in yet again.
To say that the physical laws are just descriptions of conscious decisions leading to behavior, misses the point. We describe all other physical change in the world completely in terms of physical laws playing out, without any need for consciousness. Therefore we cannot say that in the case of our own behavior that consciousness is required at all. We must judge it to be superfluous.
I did not ignore your point at all. I directly addressed it. The fact that you cannot see why my response soundly refutes your argument, just illustrates your own inability to even contemplate the possibility that consciousness might just be brain processes.
Consider the following argument, which could easily have been presented 100 years ago:
We describe all other physical change in the world completely in terms of physical laws playing out, without any need for nuclear fusion. Therefore we cannot say that in the case of the sun, that nuclear fusion is required at all. We must judge it to be superfluous.
Doesn't hold any water, does it? Consciousness is a specific set of physical processes. The fact that we can describe some parts of the world completely in terms of physical laws, without making any reference to those processes, does not in any way imply that those processes are superfluous to a description of human behavior. Your argument is completely nonsensical, because it assumes that consciousness is not a set of physical processes.
Why are you assuming that there is anything more to consciousness than these "3rd person perspective facts"?
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Well if you are denying the existence of consciousness then there is nothing more I can say. Third person facts just give third person facts.
Where did I deny the existence of consciousness?
Let me try an analogy. A pencil can be viewed from its side, or it can be viewed straight on. Even though on both occasions we are viewing one and the same object, nevertheless our visual experiences will be quite different. The same goes for consciousness. Even though consciousness and the firing of neurons are one and the same thing, they are not synonymous. You can either view consciousness from the outside (neural processes), or the inside (conscious experience).
Nonsense. The conscious experience is not a view of consciousness, it is the process of being conscious. There is no first-person perspective of consciousness. The so-called "first-person" facts about consciousness that you claim we all have, are nothing more than our intuitive interpretations of the
process of being conscious. That process is a physical process. All facts about consciousness are objective, third-person facts. Your own intuitive interpretation of consciousness is just that, an interpretation.
The above is nothing more than a flawed semantic justification for inserting dualism into a system where none is required.
Now in order to understand a pencil's behaviour if we choose to throw it accross a room, clearly we shall need to know how the pencil looks from every perspective, including how it looks from its side and how it looks end on (so we know its 3D shape). In contrast, to understand our behaviour, we need only refer to what we know about consciousness from the outside. Consciousness viewed from the inside is superflous to explaining our behaviour.
I agree. But that is completely different from saying that consciousness is superfluous to explaining our behavior. Your subjective interpretation of your experiences, and the experiences themselves, are two different things.
They don't "logically necessitate" it, they are it! Stop trying to cast me as some sort of epiphenomenalist.
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No, epiphenomenism only naturally necessitates consciousness. To say that consciousness is one and the very same thing as physical processes is to say it is logically necessitated.
Logically necessitated by what? Does it make any sense to say that something is logically necessitated by itself? Because that is exactly what you are saying when you claim that consciousness is logically necessitated by brain processes.
So show it. I'd also be interested to understand why a boulder rolling down a hill doesn't logically necessitate consciousness, but our behavior does.
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Go ask somebody who actually believes in epiphenomenalism. I don't.
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Hmmmm, interesting that you're unable to answer this question.
I'll answer your question, right after you tell me why elephants have wings.
Dr. Stupid
) have written about this topic, linking it to psychokinesis (the influence of mind upon matter) and ESP. A third kind of law would have to explain somatogenic influences of the brain on non-perceptual mental processes such as are seen in sleep, many Altered States of Consciousness, brain disease or the effects of neurobiological maturation on psychological development. 