• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Has consciousness been fully explained?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Plat said:
The physical processes in the brain might be explained somewhat but the subjective experience that emerges from it has not been, but then again that right there ties in to, do I dare say it, the hard problem of consciousness...then the opinions come flying in.
Click to expand...

I see your HPC and raise you one Problem of Vague Defintion. :D

ETA:
What evidence is there of subjective experience sans a physical process?
 
Last edited:
westprog said:
I said differently and you changed that to totally differently. Obviously the brain structures are different. Obviously they are not totally different. What difference does this make to the function of generating consciousness? Nobody knows.
Click to expand...

Well, in the case of visual perception, the end result is very similar and similar for most sensation to perception pathways, there is variation but greater similarity.
 
westprog said:
I've come to think of the explanations that just define the tricky bits out of existence as being like the young Earth being created with the appearance of age.
Click to expand...

So show me qualia in a neurology lab that studies visual perception? Then you can tell me it is glossed over, show me its physical correlates, rather than abstracted verbal cognition labeling.

Qualia makes about as much sense as élan vital, or 'group unconsciousness'..
 
TubbaBlubba said:
I feel like Dennet just tiptoes around it by saying "there are no such things as qualia". There being processes in the brain is all fine and dandy, but me actually experiencing it, rather than the process just going on without the "self", seems different. It's just that I can't put my finger on exactly how it's different. Any other person in the world would seem the same to me without the "self", but to me, there would be a difference if I just functioned mechanically, or if there was an inner observer.

But since the difference is just to me, I don't know if there's even a question to be asked.
Click to expand...

The self is a physical body, the rest is fabrication and illusion.
 
Plat said:
Wow, this topic is really complex since the answers I have been getting ranges from "no, it is one of the biggest mysteries in science" to "we don't even know why cant even explain it" to "it has been explained a fair amount", I mean which one is it really closest too? I guess it depends on how you view it, so is it then fair to say that we need to know A LOT more about consciousness?
Click to expand...

Try defining it, that always helps. :)
 
Ill try my best, I guess it's because currently we don't know how to nail down exactly what causes consciousness? When we can make robots/A.I. that are fully aware and have subjective experiences of their own then I guess we'll know by then lol.
 
Last edited:
CurtC said:
I've heard it said that to a physicist, everything is just physics. Chemistry, biology, etc., are just stamp collecting.

That's kind of the way I look at consciousness. It's just neuron biochemistry piled up into a giant heap. It has all been explained in terms of neurons - we can explain the details of how they work. The rest is just semantics of how we refer to things they do in large numbers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, nobody really has any trouble with the fact that a few photons interacting with retinal cells, then getting routed to a bunch of neurons in the brain can cause an organism to percieve a flash of light. Same goes for other sensory pathways. Most people have no trouble accepting that some perception (one or more of the above simple pathways) can trigger a bunch of other neurons to keep a kind of record of the perception, not what I would even call "memory" yet, just a different set of neurons keeping track of a particular perception. Now these latest neurons are able to associate with other bunches of neurons to link perceptions to other perceptions, and we've got memories. Link to a few neurons in the midbrain, and we've got emotional association. Repeat this a few billion times, and "conciousness" is merely a word describing the functions in bulk.
 
Plat said:
Ill try my best, I guess it's because currently we don't know how to nail down exactly what causes consciousness? When we can make robots/A.I. that are fully aware and have subjective experiences of their own then I guess we'll know by then lol.
Click to expand...

How will we know that they are conscious and having subjective experiences?
 
leon_heller said:
How will we know that they are conscious and having subjective experiences?
Click to expand...

I guess by their reaction to things and their behavior, we could put them on tests that might discern whether they are conscious, what those "tests" will consists of...I don't know, I'll leave that up to the experts.
 
Dancing David said:
Well some of us feel that way.

I don't know if I am a p-zombie, I have all the behaviors of consciousness, but I can't tell if I am conscious, other than the medical definition.
Click to expand...
You need a medical definition of conscious to decide if you are?

If you're not conscious I doubt the medical definition would be of help.
 
Dancing David said:
But the processes are similar , yes?
The photo receptors, the retinal preprocessing network, the optic nerve, the visual cortex, those are similar , yes?
Click to expand...

Yes, also very similar to primates. I can't begin to conceive what the subjective experiences of a monkey are like.
 
westprog said:
I've come to think of the explanations that just define the tricky bits out of existence as being like the young Earth being created with the appearance of age.
Click to expand...

I like this analogy. May I borrow it on occasion?

Third Eye Open said:
Fair enough. I assume it is basically the same because people act basically the same.
Click to expand...

Yes. We typically make that assumption not only about perceptions but also emotions. But, like all fundamental premises, just because it seems reasonable, we can't assume that it works that way. Subatomic physics have taught us that.

TubbaBlubba said:
Yeah, it seems that the only way to get a reasonable answer out of the whole "consciousness" mess is to assume that the consciousness doesn't really exist.
Click to expand...
And yes, we all seem to experience what the term "conscious" appears to mean. As Third Eye Open says, we assume it is basically the same because people act basically the same. It clearly describes what I do when I am not sleeping.

Plat said:
I guess by their reaction to things and their behavior, we could put them on tests that might discern whether they are conscious, what those "tests" will consists of...I don't know, I'll leave that up to the experts.
Click to expand...
Yes, well, the experts are perplexed enough that some of them just give it up and say it's an illusion. My understanding is that they mean it's an illusion the way a rainbow is an illusion. Personally, I think we are still a ways off from understand the illusion of consciousness the way we understand the illusion of a rainbow.

I like the analogy though. Consciousness is as real as a rainbow.

Loss Leader said:
So long as you have no follow up questions, yes.
Click to expand...

This made me laugh. Thanks.
 
Third Eye Open said:
Because we are both human. You're nervous system is the same as mine, you're skeleton is the same, your circulatory system is the same, you're digestive system is the same.

There is no reason to think that your consciousness, which resides in a very similar body, would be radically different from mine.
Click to expand...

Going by this reasoning, there would be no reason to think that behavior would vary much between people. After all, if we all have the same nervous system, skeleton, circulatory system, etc. we should all behave pretty much the same way, right? A little thing called the DSM-IV seems to contradict this line of reasoning.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom