Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Ichneumonwasp]

Well, it's true. We don't know enough about the brain to conclude all that much.

We don't know enough about the brain to conclude all that much about what? We don't know everything but we know quite a bit including several areas that are vital to consciousness.

 

[PixyMisa]

For a graduate student of cognitive neuroscience, cornsail's education in actual neurology seems to be somewhat lacking. One of the reasons I so highly recommend that MIT lecture series is that they spend time actually tracing the path of perception through the brain. (Jeremy Wolfe's field is visual perception.)

If you ignore the hardware and focus solely on the software, you're apt to come away with funny ideas, whether you're a neuroscientist or a computer programmer.

 

[Meed]

Yes. Yes we do.

"Much" is obviously a relative term. That there is far more we don't know than we do know is essentially all I meant.

We know, for example, that consciousness is not unitary.

Meaning?

We know, for example, that qualia don't exist.
We know, for example, that neutral monism is pure nonsense.

Scientific studies you're basing these conclusions on?

 

[Meed]

We don't know enough about the brain to conclude all that much about what?

How memories are stored, how concepts are formed, how motivation and emotion are regulated, how similarity assessments are made, how judgments and decisions are made, how language is processed, how consciousness works, etc.

 

[rocketdodger]

How memories are stored, how concepts are formed, how motivation and emotion are regulated, how similarity assessments are made, how judgments and decisions are made, how language is processed, how consciousness works, etc.

Actually we do know how memories are stored, kinda -- look up associative memory/networks.

 

[Meed]

For a graduate student of cognitive neuroscience, cornsail's education in actual neurology seems to be somewhat lacking. One of the reasons I so highly recommend that MIT lecture series is that they spend time actually tracing the path of perception through the brain. (Jeremy Wolfe's field is visual perception.)

If you ignore the hardware and focus solely on the software, you're apt to come away with funny ideas, whether you're a neuroscientist or a computer programmer.

Cognitive psychology, not cognitive neuroscience. That includes basic neuroscience/biopsych, but it's far from my main research focus. I have to ask what makes you say that I seem to be lacking education in neurology, though... It's certainly true compared with someone like Ichneumonwasp, but I don't recall saying all that much about neurology. If I'd said some blatantly wrong things about it, then your criticism would make some sort of sense to me. Also, I'm familiar with the path of visual perception in the brain. I've even commented on it in this thread, so I don't know why you would assume otherwise.

 

[AkuManiMani]

You never actually left square one. And you won't, until you give up the notion that "qualia" is a meaningful term.

You never actually left square one. And you won't, until you recognize that "qualia" is a meaningful term for 'meaning'.

This is a sceptic forum. If that is your claim, you need to produce the evidence.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're using a different set of criteria for people you agree with and people you don't...

 

[AkuManiMani]

Consciousness is an illusion.

Wow.... I'm becoming more and more convinced that your own alleged consciousness is the illusion here

 

[AkuManiMani]

Answer my earlier question, and you'll find that you already know the answer to yours...

I see no question there, just dishonesty.

Its a simple question: 'What are you feeling right now?'

The only dishonesty here is your persistence in dodging it.

 

[Malerin]

Its a simple question: 'What are you feeling right now?'

The only dishonesty here is your persistence in dodging it.

The inability (or refusal) to answer a question like that is indicative of a bankrupt intellectual position.

 

[AkuManiMani]

As I said before physical-ism is just a non-falsifiable semantic game; its basic premise is simply that everything real is 'physical'.

That depends entirely what you mean by 'physical'. The way the word 'physicalism' is used most commonly in these parts, it is primarily an epistemic position with minimal ontological claims.

It does, however, make specific claims, so it is not unqualified. Specifically, it is a monism. We generally make no claim on the identity of the ur-substance; but it also claims that the universe/multiverse works by some set of rules. The epistemic claim is that all we can learn is how the rules work. It makes the further claim that everything we encounter is reducible to whatever the ur-substance is or to its actions (which follows from the idea of monism).

It is essentially coequal with Rorty's Neopragmatism.

The thing is that the foundation of epistemic pursuit it one's immediate experience. As it happens, the topic of discussion -- consciousness -- is the sine qua non of all knowledge. Without the subjective there cannot be any knowledge of the objective. One's own consciousness and immediate experience is the only 'ur-substance' that one can have direct knowledge of; all else are hypotheticals with varying degrees of reliability.

...Ergo, physical-ism is simply defining reality according to one's particular conception of what constitutes 'physical'.

Sort of. Physicalists do not typically identify what we know of physics currently as what actually is. We identify current physical theories as our current tentative model of the world. I have no idea what reality *is*. Reality is only something we can get a general idea of with the models we construct.

Hence my objection to turning any model into an ideological view -- an '-ism'.

So if a given physicalist encounters a proposition that doesn't seem to fit with their personal pre-existing notion of 'physical' they reject it a priori.

Doesn't follow. Whatever the rules of the universe are we have no option but to accept if we are to be honest. We decide what is provisionally true about the world based on evidence and the models that we construct best to explain that evidence. The strength of evidence within a model always depends on the number and types of alternative explanations. If alternative explanations are not available within a model, we are forced to change the model, as has occurred in the past.

My point is that attachment to the ideology of physical-ism, and not so much the physical model itself, is the problem.

 

[AkuManiMani]

The inability (or refusal) to answer a question like that is indicative of a bankrupt intellectual position.

The only occasions I've ever witnessed this level of dishonesty and self-deception is in interactions with psychopaths I know. I'm not being facetious at all when I say that I think theres something seriously wrong with PixyMisa.

 

[PixyMisa]

"Much" is obviously a relative term. That there is far more we don't know than we do know is essentially all I meant.

There's a lot we don't know about how specific arrangements of neurons carry out specific functions. But we do know which specific arrangements of neurons carry out specific functions. We also know how neurons work, and how they interconnect.

Scientific studies you're basing these conclusions on?

All of them.

 

[Meed]

Actually we do know how memories are stored, kinda -- look up associative memory/networks.

That is far too broad a search term for me to know what you're talking about. If you're saying we know more than zero, then yes, that's obviously true.

 

[PixyMisa]

How memories are stored, how concepts are formed, how motivation and emotion are regulated, how similarity assessments are made, how judgments and decisions are made, how language is processed, how consciousness works, etc.

Let's say we grant everything on that list.

Is there any reason at all to doubt that the brain does all that?

 

[PixyMisa]

Cognitive psychology, not cognitive neuroscience.

Sorry, yes, my mistake.

That includes basic neuroscience/biopsych, but it's far from my main research focus. I have to ask what makes you say that I seem to be lacking education in neurology, though... It's certainly true compared with someone like Ichneumonwasp, but I don't recall saying all that much about neurology. If I'd said some blatantly wrong things about it, then your criticism would make some sort of sense to me. Also, I'm familiar with the path of visual perception in the brain. I've even commented on it in this thread, so I don't know why you would assume otherwise.

Here's the thing, cornsail. You're clearly intelligent. You're studying the field in question, at a graduate level, where I'm just an interested observer from a somewhat related field (computer science).

And yet you give credence to patent nonsense - for example, neutral monism.

Brains are physical. Thoughts are brain activity. Therefore neutral monism is untrue.

The mental reduces to the physical. It really is that simple.

 

[Meed]

All of them.

Please tell me you're joking.

 

[PixyMisa]

Please tell me you're joking.

Why would I be joking?

How could the results of any scientific experiment be irrelevant to fundamental (albeit nonsensical) concepts like neutral monism and qualia?

 

[Meed]

Let's say we grant everything on that list.

Is there any reason at all to doubt that the brain does all that?

Some anti-representationalist/dynamicist types deny concepts. I don't much care for their school of thought, though. And the Churchlands, as I understand it, deny consciousness.

 

[PixyMisa]

I don't think the Churchlands deny consciousness so much as point out that it is ill-defined. Which is certainly true.

I just found an interview with them that I haven't seen before, so I'm going to go off and watch that for a bit.