Define Consiousness

[davidsmith73]

And with that suggestion, you are immediately outside rationality. You are immediately outside one of the few axioms of science.

Yes I am. But only a science that contends that its descriptions are of a reality that lies outside experience. That assumption is not necessary for science to work purely as a method of describing and making prediction about our experiences.

What is truly meaningless is this metaphysical fog. The existence of objective reality is axiomatic to science, and has been for several hundred years. In all those years of experimentation, there has yet to be compelling evidence against this axiom.

I shall quote you here Bill:

"Now, please, somebody propose something to falsify qualia. So far, we've got two basic kinds of answers. In the first the poster baldly asserts that qualia are obviously real, but immaterial and not subject to scientific inquiry. In the second, the poster sets out to prove X by assuming X."

You can see the hypocracy I'm sure. If you are postulating that its possible to have evidence for or against the axiom of objectivity, then you are trying to prove objectivity while at the same time assuming objectivity.

I already have. I even alluded to the research indicating that specific experiences can be recalled by probing specific brain cells. Here's the easy way to clear the fog. Get a plane ticket. Get on the flight. Fly someplace. I will make the simple claim that, unless you died in flight or on some serious drugs, you will have had the experience of that flight. We can objectively verify that experience by checking your purchase records, and the airline's manifest. Then we can objectively verify the experience within you (if you will) by probing an area of your brain that will trigger your recall of that experience.

So your criteria for identifying an experience is - do something and you will have an experience of it. Oh dear Bill, this is not good enough. Please don't waste my time with this poor excuse for philosophical thought. All of your suggestion above completely side-step the issue which is the nature of the experience itself.

I just did. Again. And again. I can probe your memory. But, of course, if you don't believe you have a brain, I will certainly not refute that contention.

The hard problem will not just go away.
I shall ask you once again. Now you must answer this question Bill, its very important for this discussion.

you excite my brain cells and what happens .....?

Excuse me, but you are arguing objective reality ain't, and now you are arguing subjective reality ain't. How about just concluding "ain't," it would be just as silly and not waste our time.

No Bill, you know very well that I am talking about subjectivity existing in your second sense.

If it ain't rooted in matter or energy, sir, it is rooted in magic. Some mystical, ephemeral nothingness that you have to explain, not I.

No, you brought up the term "magic" so you must explain why it is necessary. I have never used the terms mystical, ephemeral or nothingness either. Sorry try again.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Penfield's stimulated memory recall work dates back to the 1940s.

Memory

The page you linked to doesn't present a favorable view of this at all.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by davidsmith73

How do you identify a physical process that gives rise to an experience as opposed to one that does not?

That is an interesting question. It gets me thinking about physical processes that do not give rise to experiences, despite demonstrable evidence that information was aquired through the senses, and perhaps even acted upon (such as in the split-brain patients). Clearly, different sensa produce different effects -- or, the same sensa produce different effects at different times. Crick and Koch stuck their necks out with the business about 40-hertz oscillations, but it's a long way from a satisfactory explanation.

 

[hammegk]

Yes I am.

Actually, you may not be.

Science works equally well with

Objective, physical, reality exists,

or

Objective, ~physical, reality exists.

 

[BillHoyt]

The page you linked to doesn't present a favorable view of this at all.

Well, perhaps you should give it another look. The lecturer who wrote this was objecting to the bold claims made, not to the reality of the data.

 

[Mr. E]

That is an interesting question. It gets me thinking about physical processes that do not give rise to experiences, despite demonstrable evidence that information was aquired through the senses, and perhaps even acted upon (such as in the split-brain patients). Clearly, different sensa produce different effects -- or, the same sensa produce different effects at different times. Crick and Koch stuck their necks out with the business about 40-hertz oscillations, but it's a long way from a satisfactory explanation.

Are you referring to such as in this link? http://leadwise.com/leadu/Intention/goals/newman.htm#sec3

ME

 

[hammegk]

Assume that objective, physical, reality exists, and that paper presents what to me is a good overview of scientific reductionism applied to HPC in particular.

As to explaining the emergent property -- or epiphenomena -- or whatever -- of "consciousness", pah.

 

[BillHoyt]

Yes I am. But only a science that contends that its descriptions are of a reality that lies outside experience. That assumption is not necessary for science to work purely as a method of describing and making prediction about our experiences.

"Science that contends its descriptions are of a reality that lies outside experience," sir, is nearly 100% of science. The bit of "science" excluded is considered "borderland" science with good reason.

You really need to look at the "axioms of science" that I've posted here several times over the past few years. "Objective, external reality" is axiomatic.

I shall quote you here Bill:

"Now, please, somebody propose something to falsify qualia. So far, we've got two basic kinds of answers. In the first the poster baldly asserts that qualia are obviously real, but immaterial and not subject to scientific inquiry. In the second, the poster sets out to prove X by assuming X."

You can see the hypocracy I'm sure. If you are postulating that its possible to have evidence for or against the axiom of objectivity, then you are trying to prove objectivity while at the same time assuming objectivity.

No. Objective reality is axiomatic. It is considered axiomatic for two reasons: 1. Nothing in the past hundreds of years of science has compelling pointing to an alternative conclusion and 2. We cannot yet find a test to falsify it. Should 1 change we would have an abundance of alternative hypotheses accompanied by a surfeit of research proposals to falsify them. This is the essential difference. You presume qualia as an immaterial something-ior-other. You also cite evidence you claims confirms the existence of qualia. Clearly, sir, there are alternative hypotheses. Clearly, sir, if your evidence were of any quality here, you would be able to devise a test to rule out one of these hypotheses. You can't.

So your criteria for identifying an experience is - do something and you will have an experience of it. Oh dear Bill, this is not good enough. Please don't waste my time with this poor excuse for philosophical thought. All of your suggestion above completely side-step the issue which is the nature of the experience itself.

So now you claim that an experience is not an experience? Why? Because there was a physical root cause to it? How much further down this ruse will you take us, david, before you realize you are demonstrating my major contention here? "Qualia" are a philosophical ruse devised to provide a No True Scotsman when the "hard problem" is solved. You've just demonstrated the ruse here by asking about experience, and then poo-pooing an example of it because it is rooted in the objective and not in a metaphysical fog.

Is it seriously your contention that an experience of an event is not an experience? Why? Why is this different from Ian's "red?" You're in a complete muddle here. Clean up your boots as you try to pull yourself up. Can't you hear the giggling?

The hard problem will not just go away.
I shall ask you once again. Now you must answer this question Bill, its very important for this discussion.

you excite my brain cells and what happens .....? [/qiuote]
Apparently nothing from the paltry quality of your argumentation thus far. For most people, however, a chain of neural associations is kicked off, recalling a memory or memories.

No Bill, you know very well that I am talking about subjectivity existing in your second sense.

I know full well you are denying a connection to the objective and continue to hide behind layers of meaning for "private" and "subjective," as you are with this next bit...

No, you brought up the term "magic" so you must explain why it is necessary. I have never used the terms mystical, ephemeral or nothingness either. Sorry try again.

Stop playing word games. The core question here is obvious: is it brain function or not? Physical or not? If you claim it is not physical or in some other way special and outside science, you are claiming magic. Call it whatever you want, it ain't science, it ain't physical. Do you deny this? Or do you simply want to continue hiding behind words and not address the fact you cannot give us a means to falsify "qualia." Why can't you?

 

[Mr. E]

Excuse me, but those presupposing the existence of "qualia" as an immaterial, special thing are the ones making the claim. The onus is on them to provide evidence.

I can conceive of qualia as non-material and special, given fairly ordinary definitions of the terms. What exact claim requires defense?

There is no formula, mystery.

Okay, so your obstinate obsessive demands for people to "falsify" something are fake. Fine. Don't you have some better way to waste time?

It most assuredly does. You hypothesize X. I ask for falsification. You propose we eliminate the hypothesized Xs and see what happens. That's a zip, zero, nada, non-starter.

Since you have not at all correctly formulated the situation, it is your text which is not starting, again.

Address the question, please: how do you falsify the "qualia" hypothesis? [/B]

I suppose one would do it in the same general way as one would falsify any hypothesis warranting falsification.


ME

 

[hammegk]

You really need to look at the "axioms of science" that I've posted here several times over the past few years. "Objective, external reality" is axiomatic.

No. Objective reality is axiomatic.

Which is it I wonder? I note that "physical" has disappeared from Bill's Axiom. Where did it get to?

And "Objective, external reality"? External to what?


Someone who isn't on his ignore list should ask him.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I haven't said much here, beyond a psych textbook definition of "consciousness" on page 1. I was later insulted for that.
So I decided to see what "qualia" were, because you all were using the term differently than I had been taught.
What did I find?
"Qualia comprize the thingness of something."
"Oh, no. The somethingness of some thing!"
I was reminded of the Lutonian Philosophy Department on SCTV.

I report I see "red".
Is this a quale?
Is the quality "red" a quale?

 

[Mr. E]

Can something be said to 'exist' in a state of total unawareness of its surroundings? I'd say no; now, what is that awareness, and when does it begin? Or could we say when does "consciousness" begin?

I'm not sure what you are asking nor what you are asking about. It might be that 'exist' is not well-defined or is multivalent. Is a rock aware of its surroundings in a meaningful way even if it is affected by them somehow? But if we accept for the sake of argument that people exist (even if they exist in confusion in large part) we can consider how it is that they are at all aware of their surroundings. Then consciousness "begins" when sensation is synthesized with awareness, as I've stated earlier.

I note that this in no way suggests the antropomorphic definition of consciousness some seem to ascribe to it.

Anthropomorphic? Do you consider my definition such a one?

Of course. Tell me, do you take my comment(s) to be a priori bunk, or is that your considered opinion?

Tell me, how is this to become meaningful either way?

You deny "thought" to be an existent? If so, how interesting. Actually, my most objective sense is that *I* think, but of course that could be The Solipsist's dream(i.e. Thought Exists).

I don't recall denying that. I may have suggested that some thoughts are experienced while others are not. May I suggest that the sense you refer to is better stated "I (dis)believe", not "I think"?

I guess your Solipsism reference is targetted at II. It might be possible to argue from Self + Qualia being the only existents to the notion that other people are not real, what I understand as a necessary consequent of Solipsism. I figure II's notion is that "infinite mind" would somehow accommodate a world of some billions of solipsistic entities (ordinary people) who falsely believe they are not what they truly are.

The ongoing discussion of falsifying qualia is a materialistic laugher. For individual human level qualia, its easy; Die (in the human sense).

Good humor is good, dry or wet. There might be harder but more rewarding ways than your terminal method. If you are recommending death to narrow-minded materialists, you might want to be aware that assisting a suicide might be against the law.


ME

 

[Mr. E]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. Objective reality is axiomatic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which is it I wonder? I note that "physical" has disapperared from Bill's Axiom. Where did it get to?
And "Objective, external reality"? External to what?
Someone who isn't on his ignore list should ask him.

Okay, I will play along and have posted this in that spirit. Bill seems to be a closet dualist defending some vague materialism construced (constructed or construed) out of misconstructions of historical facts.

For me, what makes "external reality" objective for science is simply the definition of science as having the objective of exploring nature honestly combined with the notion that there might be something real "behind" the phenomena we commonly refer to as phenomena of nature. But that doesn't say that reality exists nor that it is purely physical if it is physical at all.

However it strikes me that this direction might be rather atopical.

ME

 

[Mr. E]

I report I see "red".
Is this a quale?[/B]

Reports might or might not be. If false, then possibly not. If true, then why not?

Should this forum have a sign saying: "Check your sense of humor at the "cloakroom", please!"?

There seem to be two kinds of quale, seriously speaking: Redness and the feeling associated with redness.

Were you insulted or was the target text insulting?

ME

 

[hammegk]

Okay, I will play along and have posted this in that spirit.

Thanks, but unfortunately you rather mangled it. Any chance for a bit of formatting, and including all of the words? Although, who knows, Bill might actually look at the source.

 

[Mr. E]

Thanks, but unfortunately you rather mangled it. Any chance for a bit of formatting, and including all of the words? Although, who knows, Bill might actually look at the source.

Patience is a virtue. The way of Found Art should not be over-corrected. Time will tell.

ME

 

[Dancing David]

I'd say: Where exists a physical frame without a quale? Physical frames are defined they do not stand alone!

Well duh, I agree Hamme, no need for tounge wagging. It would appear that the realm of observation is observed because there is some frame work for observation.

Mu, physical frames are only a descriptive convinience.
Materialism and idealism differ only in an untestable hypothesis. idealism sufferes from the HPC as much as the materialist, they are equal.

 

[Jeff Corey]

That reaaly struck me as incomprehensible.
Please tell me what quales are and stop playing around.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Well, perhaps you should give it another look. The lecturer who wrote this was objecting to the bold claims made, not to the reality of the data.

You said: "I can probe your memory."

I said: "Could you explain how you plan on doing that?"

You: posted a link to that site

I: looked at that site, which cleary says the data for claims of probing memory is of poor quality

Question: How does that page support your claim of you being able to probe memory?

From the page:
(underline mine)

Firstly, the numbers are not impressive: in only 40 out of 1,132 cases did he find any memory recovery; excluding patients who heard only music or voices and those whose responses were too vague to classify, less than 3% of the patients experienced the "lifelike memories" for which Penfield's work is so famous.

and

Secondly, there was no attempt to check the veracity of the memories, and the patient protocols read like reconstructions, heavily based on inferences.

Please present additional data in a Hoytgram or whatever form you'd like, to back up your claim.

 

[Mr. E]

That reaaly struck me as incomprehensible.
Please tell me what quales are and stop playing around.

It was compact with an eye to reducing verbiage. I guess you are asking me to unpack it for you, and that you are doing it in a rather rude fashion. "There seem to be two kinds of quale, seriously speaking: Redness and the feeling associated with redness." Did you mean to ask "How am I?" or maybe "How do qualia occur, what brain processes create the impression of redness when I, Jeff, see red?"

??

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jeff Corey
I report I see "red".
Is this a quale?[/B]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reports might or might not be. If false, then possibly not. If true, then why not?
----------------------------
:endquote

Reports might or might not be qualia.
If you report falsely, then maybe "red" doesn't represent a genuine experience. If you report truly, then why should we doubt that you saw red?

Okay?


ME