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Consciousness

Belz... said:
Yeah, "god" is a label too, but like qualia, it represents an idea about reality, and it's important to address false ideas and pull people away from that kind of thinking.



Do you agree that qualia don't exist, then?
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It's a label for a particular point of view that seems to make some parts of internal experience into discrete bundles of experience.

It's bollocks.

edit: in my opinion.
 
Then again what is your question?

What part of "consciousness" are we talking about?
 
p0lka said:
It's a label for a particular point of view that seems to make some parts of internal experience into discrete bundles of experience.

It's bollocks.

edit: in my opinion.
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You're the one who said you didn't quite understand why Joe said it was a soul-of-the-gaps argument.
 
There is no experience of the colour red. Specific wavelengths of light hit the light sensitive cells at the back of your eye and the brains electro-chemical processes allow you to see red. That's it. Red is just a colour and is defined entirely by the wavelength of the rays. Nothing mystical, nothing non physical.

At best you could say that it's possible that it doesn't look the same to you as it does to me, maybe, but since there's no way to know and it doesn't matter in the slightest, who cares?
 
Belz... said:
I know exactly what the definition of qualia is, Mike. You can stop repeating it. Instead, please answer my specific questions about it.
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"What does it do, how does it work, where is it, how does one detect it"

In reverse order.

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How does one detect it?

The conscious experience is directly manifest. If you don't detect it, maybe you don't possess it.

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Where is it?

Physical, material things have location.

Locations are just relative measurements.

The mind doesn't have a location relative to physical things.

Physical things have relative locations in the mind.

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How does it work

Premise 1: existence consists fundamentally of "being"

Premise 2: being operates in such a way that, within itself, it makes it model of itself

Premise 3: a model of being, made of being, must itself be being

Consciousness then, is not something a material body possesses. It's what happens when reality, when being itself tries to understand itself.

Hmmm. Maybe that's why you can't detect it? ;-)

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What does it do

To those with a conscious experience, it is immediately obvious.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I have no idea because I have no idea what you are saying.

I'm not playing this game. Nail your own Jello to the wall.

"LOL I don't like labels" seems to mean you don't like clarity or actually having a point.
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ok,
Do you have an internal experience?

If you do have an internal experience,

Is it ANYTHING different from "external stimuli causing electrical/chemical reactions in your brain?

Does it feel like all the external stimuli causing electrical/chemical reactions in your brain have nothing to do with your internal experience? That's what i'm interested in.

If you don't have an internal experience though?
become a mod, p-zombies a go go here apparently.
 
bruto said:
I would have thought there's a reasonable evolutionary reason for pain. It tells us when we have been injured. It tells us to stop doing something that is injuring us. Sure, it goes wrong sometimes and like a lot of things it's not very precise. But the absence of pain is, I gather, a real problem for people with paralysis, heavy nerve damage, or extreme intoxication.

As to whether there's a difference between pain and the experience of pain, I think that depends on whether nerve signal that causes what we experience as pain cause any other predictable results in a person who is entirely devoid of consciousness - e.g. a person with brain death. I don't know what, if any, other events might occur that are explicitly and exclusively caused by the nerves that transmit pain (not talking about other reflexes we might expect to accompany it). We could then get into an endless argument about definitions of things, a new version of whether an unheard tree falling in the forest makes a sound. Absent any confirmation that pain does anything other than trigger the sensation of pain, and steering clear of the ontological black hole of how a radical empiricist might define "experience," I default to presuming that pain and the experience of pain are the same.
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That is how leprosy works. Leprosy stops the ability to feel pain, typically in the extremities initially. Thus a sufferer from Hansens disease will simply not notice a minor injury to a finger or toe or whatever. If such a minor injury became infected, they wouldn't notice that either. The mutilation itself that people associate with the disease is not directly caused be the disease. It is because the disease causes one not to notice the secondary effects. Because one can no longer sense such injury.
 
p0lka said:
oDoes it feel like all the external stimuli causing electrical/chemical reactions in your brain have nothing to do with your internal experience?
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What? Gibberish. Absolute Gibberish.

Don't you sit there and try to slide some kind of "Oh but don't you just feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel like you're more than just a brain?" nonsense into the discussion sideways.

I don't give a **** what you are I or any Tom, Dick, or Harry "feeeEEeeeeEEels" about our mental processing. It doesn't change reality.
 
Mike Helland said:
How does one detect it?

The conscious experience is directly manifest. If you don't detect it, maybe you don't possess it.
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We're not talking about conscious experience. We're talking about qualia, specifically. What kind of scientific equipment do I need to identify it?

The mind doesn't have a location relative to physical things.
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How would you know this? Please link to a peer-reviewed paper that establishes this.

Premise 1: existence consists fundamentally of "being"
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Why use a synonym? We already know what existence means.

Premise 2: being operates in such a way that, within itself, it makes it model of itself

Premise 3: a model of being, made of being, must itself be being
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You want some sauce with that word salad?

Consciousness then, is not something a material body possesses. It's what happens when reality, when being itself tries to understand itself.
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How would you know this? Please link to a peer-reviewed paper that establishes this.

To those with a conscious experience, it is immediately obvious.
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Again, we are talking about qualia. Pay attention.
 
Belz... said:
We're not talking about conscious experience. We're talking about qualia, specifically.
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"In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience."

I see lots of colors right now.

That's part of my conscious experience.

Isolating just one little piece of red is what a qualia is supposed to be.

If you don't like it, fine.
 
JoeMorgue said:
What? Gibberish. Absolute Gibberish.

Don't you sit there and try to slide some kind of "Oh but don't you just feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel like you're more than just a brain?" nonsense into the discussion sideways.

I don't give a **** what you are I or any Tom, Dick, or Harry "feeeEEeeeeEEels" about our mental processing. It doesn't change reality.
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It was a question which you have yet to answer.

I agree it doesn't change reality, reality is what we are working with.

If you have an internal experience, which presumably you do.

does it feel like your central nervous system is in charge?

If it doesn't? then that warrants investigation.
 
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Mike Helland said:
"In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience."

I see lots of colors right now.

That's part of my conscious experience.

Isolating just one little piece of red is what a qualia is supposed to be.

If you don't like it, fine.
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What part of "I know exactly what the definition of qualia is, Mike. You can stop repeating it. Instead, please answer my specific questions about it." did you not understand?

That's the sum of your contributions in this thread: dodge questins, and answer with unrelated or nonsensical stuff. Does that make you proud?
 
"Does it feel like all the external stimuli causing electrical/chemical reactions in your brain have nothing to do with your internal experience?"

Yes on odd days, no on even days, except during leap years and the Stanley Cup playoffs at which point it reverses.
 
Belz... said:
What part of "I know exactly what the definition of qualia is, Mike. You can stop repeating it. Instead, please answer my specific questions about it." did you not understand?
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If that were true you'd see that qualia is defined as conscious experience instead of saying "we're not talking about conscious experience, we're talking about qualia."

My guess is you are just trying to spin people around in circles, so you get the filter. Bye.
 
Mike Helland said:
If that were true you'd see that qualia is defined as conscious experience instead of saying "we're not talking about conscious experience, we're talking about qualia."
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No, qualia is defined as fundamental packets of the "quality" of perception. It's a corollary to the "quanta", and a bit of a pun, I expect.

My guess is you are just trying to spin people around in circles
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By asking the very same question repeatedly when you are unable to answer it?
This is not a very subtle bit of projection from you, given how incapable you are of answering simple and straight questions.
 
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