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Consciousness

p0lka said:
The feeling of the internal experience must come from the brain/cnv etc, I want to know how.
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*Sighs* And this is what I mean.

If you tell someone the heart pumps blood they don't "Okay but I want to know how."

You are your brain. People nod and accept that but I don't think they actually "get" it.

"Must come from the brain" is a wrong because it's not going anywhere, it IS the brain. That's you. The think having the experience.
 
Mike Helland said:
Is that a premise, conclusion, or both?
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Conclusion, actually.

We know that every single part of the conscious self, from memories to personality to awareness itself, can be altered by altering the brain one way or another. Someone who goes into cardiac arrest shuts off completely. There is no latent consciousness that just goes "well, what's going on here?" There's not even any passage of time. But on top of that, neurology and technology have revealed that the conscious self is "updated" by the brain some tenths of a second after the latter has made the decision to do whatever you're going to do. I say again: the conscious mind is the audience, not the actor.

We get it, it's uncomfortable for all this to be accepted, but those are facts of science. We're not in the dark ages anymore. Let's grow up and accept things as they are, and work to further our lives now, rather than pine for some sort of immortality.
 
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Belz... said:
Conclusion, actually.

We know that every single part of the conscious self, from memories to personality to awareness itself, can be altered by altering the brain one way or another. Someone who goes into cardiac arrest shuts off completely. There is no latent consciousness that just goes "well, what's going on here?" There's not even any passage of time. But on top of that, neurology and technology have revealed that the conscious self is "updated" by the brain some tenths of a second after the latter has made the decision to do whatever you'r going to do. I say again: the conscious mind is the audience, not the actor.

We get it, it's uncomfortable for all this to be accepted, but those are facts of science. We're not in the dark ages anymore. Let's grow up and accept things as they are, and work to further our lives now, rather than pine for some sort of immortality.
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Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.
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I sincerely doubt David Chalmers posed the hard problem because he was uncomfortable with science.

When I was 15 I accepted that the mind comes from the brain. I would have rejected any notion to the contrary as magical thinking.

But Chalmers made a pretty persuasive argument.

The idea that we venture into those territories out of fear or comfort while others do not is amusing.
 
Mike Helland said:
I sincerely doubt David Chalmers posed the hard problem because he was uncomfortable with science.
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See, here you are dancing around again, leading yourself in circles. I wasn't talking about the Hard Problem here.

But to your point: the why this person posed this problem is irrelevant. We're discussing why people keep talking about it.

But Chalmers made a pretty persuasive argument.
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Which argument, specifically?

You've made here no attempt to address my points or the scientific facts I enumerated. Instead you vaguely allude to someone who was smart and made a convincing argument. I can make convincing arguments about anything. Doesn't make them true.

The idea that we venture into those territories out of fear or comfort while others do not is amusing.
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Why else would you accept such a blatantly anti-fact opinion?
 
JoeMorgue said:
"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.
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on the odd days, I would find it interesting how the brain/cns causes an internal experience,
like hardware running vr,
I think it should be investigated.
 
p0lka said:
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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If it feels like my central nervous system ISN'T in charge, does that not warrant investigation?

ETA: Wait. I meant to say something that contrasted with what you said and lost my way.

If I feel like my central nervous system IS in charge, does that not warrant investigation? Because it's been investigated, and as far as I understand things, it's really doubtful that the CNS is "in charge." For one thing, does that not relegate the autonomic nervous system to a support function? A sort of lesser nervous system? But why lesser? I could easily argue it is MORE critical to survival than the CNS. And do we listen with particular respect to the recommendations of our central nervous system, or is the lizard brain just as likely to make the call in a given situation?
 
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Re: qualia, when I first heard of this I just thought, "Why?"

Well probably I first heard of it in 5th grade or so, getting some curricular exposure to Western Civ as a thing, being told about Plato's Cave or whatever. And I probably thought, Why?

I definitely thought that as an adult when exposed to the concept of qualia. I couldn't see how it furthered any discussion about how we experience things. It just seemed kind of dragged in from left field. If I want to sit in a chair I don't need there to exist some essence of chair-ness. Chair-i-ness? No, I just find a hunk of wood that happens to make the experience of sitting more comfortable - why then would I not develop the concept of "things to sit on"? Why would it need to be some pre-existing form?
 
p0lka said:
Yeah, but there's an argument that it shouldn't be investigated at all, as it's just neurology.

I don't agree with that.
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Sorry, that seems incompatible with your previous post. If it's not neurology, what the hell would it be? you dismissed qualia, and presumably spiritual explanations, as nonsense, but now you're dismissing the all-physics explanation. :confused:
 
Minoosh said:
Re: qualia, when I first heard of this I just thought, "Why?"

Well probably I first heard of it in 5th grade or so, getting some curricular exposure to Western Civ as a thing, being told about Plato's Cave or whatever. And I probably thought, Why?

I definitely thought that as an adult when exposed to the concept of qualia. I couldn't see how it furthered any discussion about how we experience things. It just seemed kind of dragged in from left field. If I want to sit in a chair I don't need there to exist some essence of chair-ness. Chair-i-ness? No, I just find a hunk of wood that happens to make the experience of sitting more comfortable - why then would I not develop the concept of "things to sit on"? Why would it need to be some pre-existing form?
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Well the chair isn't part of a system that ties into the desire for immortality, for one.
 
Belz... said:
Well the chair isn't part of a system that ties into the desire for immortality, for one.
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I don't particularly crave immortality but don't have any big thing against it. But even if I were desperate to believe I don't know where the Essence of Chairness would come in. Chairs aren't even a big part of some cultures, though as we live longer I think perhaps we do appreciate comfortable furniture more.

It seems in images of heaven I've seen, there are sort of couch-like things, for leaning back eating grapes or perhaps playing the lyre, or discussing things like ideal forms ...

ETA: If there were, in the realm of ideas, a competition for the ideal chair form, I would vote for the beanbag.
 
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Belz... said:
Sorry, that seems incompatible with your previous post. If it's not neurology, what the hell would it be? you dismissed qualia, and presumably spiritual explanations, as nonsense, but now you're dismissing the all-physics explanation. :confused:
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I did not say it wasn't neurology.
I said the argument that it was 'just' neurology, therefore unworthy of investigation, is something I disagree with.
 
p0lka said:
I did not say it wasn't neurology.
I said the argument that it was 'just' neurology, therefore unworthy of investigation, is something I disagree with.
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I misread your post, then.

But, no one said that. I don't think you're disagreeing with a specific person here.
 
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