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Consciousness

Veliki George

Thinker
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Joined
Mar 9, 2018
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I'm sorry if this thread already exist. So consciousness? what is it? Is it a problem? Is it a hard problem? Did anyone actually come close to explain it? Does it need explanation?
 
Veliki George said:
I'm sorry if this thread already exist. So consciousness? what is it? Is it a problem? Is it a hard problem? Did anyone actually come close to explain it? Does it need explanation?
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The hard problem is that, if the world is fundamentally material, why are human "beings" rather than human machines? Why is there something like it is to "be", rather than a "philosophical zombie".

My suggestion is that the world is not fundamentally material, it is, at its foundation "being".

We exist as a subset of being. And our subset of being includes a dynamic model of being (our mental model of the world).

The there is model of being, in itself, made of itself.

Matter is simply a measurement, an observation, that there is something.

Being is first, matter comes second.
 
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I don't know. There is a guy, Bernardo Kastrup, he is idealist and he is challenging materialist philosophers and trolling them on Twitter. But I know almost nothing about philosophy so I can't tell if he is doing a good job.
 
The mind is an emergent property of a functioning brain. There is no hard problem of consciousness. Once the brain is turned off the mind stops. When you die this is permanent.
 
Veliki George said:
I'm sorry if this thread already exist. So consciousness? what is it? Is it a problem? Is it a hard problem? Did anyone actually come close to explain it? Does it need explanation?
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I suggest you look up threads on the topic here. We've had that conversation too many times and I don't care to have it again today.
 
Veliki George said:
I'm sorry if this thread already exist. So consciousness? what is it? Is it a problem? Is it a hard problem? Did anyone actually come close to explain it? Does it need explanation?
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Depends on if you are asking for an actual answer i.e. a scientifically supported answer or want a non-evidence based answer i.e. a philosophical/religious answer.

"Consciousness" is now a handy holdover word to say "bits of what the brain does". We have found that "consciousness" is not a singular thing, what we have is various processes happening in the brain, without some you have no "consciousness", without other processes parts of what we would usually describe as "consciousness" don't happen. We can manipulate consciousness to quite a degree these days, with chemicals and electronics.
 
Oh, and as is now obligatory for me in these discussions - I found out only a few years back that I am a p-zombie. I lack an essential part of what people assume is "consciousness" - I have no "mind's eye". When someone says "imagine an apple" - those are just words for me, I do not have the "qualia" of a "red apple" unless my eyes are looking at a red apple. I cannot "see" my mother's face by "remembering" it, I can only see her face if she is in front of my working eyes.

It's called aphantasia.
 
Darat said:
Depends on if you are asking for an actual answer i.e. a scientifically supported answer or want a non-evidence based answer i.e. a philosophical/religious answer.

"Consciousness" is now a handy holdover word to say "bits of what the brain does". We have found that "consciousness" is not a singular thing, what we have is various processes happening in the brain, without some you have no "consciousness", without other processes parts of what we would usually describe as "consciousness" don't happen. We can manipulate consciousness to quite a degree these days, with chemicals and electronics.
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We also found out that "consciousness" is updated by the brain (but only with the info it deems necessary) quite a while after making its decisions.

Consciousness is the audience, not the actor.
 
You are all talking rubbish again. Consciousness has not been explained by science.
I wasted money on Daniel Dennett's book, 'consciousness explained' only to find out it was just his pet theory. So I tweeted him and said "why didn't you call your book consciousness explored, then I would not have wasted money on it". Naturally I received no reply.
 
Yes it has Scorpion. Consciousness is directly affected by the functioning of the brain. This is why brain damage can cause changes in personality, and why magnets can affect people's morality. We can deliberately do things to the human brain which directly affect the persons consciousness. There is no such thing as a soul.

Remember when I asked you about split brain people? Remember what happened? You threw up a handwaving defence and when it was pointed out that your assumptions were false you ignored the question.
 
I do a lot of reading in the area of neuroscience, and there’s simply no evidence of anything other than the electrochemical activity of the brain to provide that “emergent property”.

The folks that hold out for “something more” are either unable or reluctant to say what that something more might be…. Or they spout religious (“souls”) or metaphysical (“universal consciousness”) claptrap with no evidence.
 
Bikewer said:
I do a lot of reading in the area of neuroscience, and there’s simply no evidence of anything other than the electrochemical activity of the brain to provide that “emergent property”.

The folks that hold out for “something more” are either unable or reluctant to say what that something more might be…. Or they spout religious (“souls”) or metaphysical (“universal consciousness”) claptrap with no evidence.
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Right, but calling it "a process" doesn't exactly clear things up either. Sounds scientific, but provides no greater insight.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
The mind is an emergent property of a functioning brain. There is no hard problem of consciousness. Once the brain is turned off the mind stops. When you die this is permanent.
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There is a problem. It's the "How does the brain create awareness?"
 
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