I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[punshhh]

Yes, I do.

Really?

It's simply incoherent.

Unsubstantiated as usual.

I have supported them.

Really?

That is the support.

All you have done is simply to assume self-consciousness and assert that reality is subject to human thinking.

And that is the end of the story.

Yes it appears to be. Well thankyou for our discussion, it was great fun and enjoyable.

Which is irrelevant.

Well it's relevant enough to require that your "is" becomes a "may" (see following quote).

Which can still be self-consciousness. It may simply not be human self-consciousness.

Agreed, all sorts of things may be the case, we can only say a thing is the case, when it is irrefutable.

No. It means the definition of self-consciousness may require adjustment, not a change to the actual argument itself.

Yes, this may be the case.

Well, yes, we can. Because we have an idea of how the end product arises: computation. If we can replicate it using computation, then we have confirmed this idea.

There is no way to screen out the mimics(toasters).

Your "point" is just a weak attempt to handwave away any positive results that might arise from this.

No, I am happy to rejoice at the positive results. I just can't see how it can be determined that the result is actually conscious.

Because computation is all that's required.

So you say.

No one is attempting to replicate partial self-consciousness.

yes, one is attempting to replicate full-self-consciousness, using only part of the mechanism.

Yes.

Yes.

Certainly a lot of things are required.

We have no reason to believe that any of these things are exclusively biological.

Agreed, well if you change all your "is" to "may", we may be in perfect agreement, well apart from the computation bit.

It doesn't even approach "sensible".

I really can't believe how backward a lot of thinking about consciousness is these days.

This remains self-contradictory gibberish.

Its just different.

It is entirely relevant.

The OP is discussing alternative is's, different definitions of is, make no difference. Unless, one is trying to define away the notion of idealism. Which of course you can't, as I have pointed out.

You refusing to accept that doesn't change it.

I am not inclined to confine reality to the limits of human thought.

Conclusion.

Yes making this conclusion is a good pragmatic strategy, for practical purposes, in the world of human affairs. Subject to scientific investigation.

Because anything else is meaningless word games.

It is the attempts to confine thought to this pragmatic conclusion which is word games.

Yes.

It is.

X may be, or may not be, identical to X.

 

[ehcks]

X may be, or may not be, identical to X.

This is an impossible statement. The reflexive property is "X = X".

 

[LarryS]

^This.

Besides, we conclude mind because that's how we perceive events. The events we conclude are part of a real world because they are consistent, persistent and independant. Demonstratably.

This does introduce another question - if we assume the Materialist POV, that consciousness is the result of a material process, and can be explained by brain activity, and consciousness can process information - - - look at itself, and it can look at the material world . . . but no one has suggested that consciousness influences matter. IOW, we have no will, free or otherwise.

What then is this consciousness to do? Why are we even talking about it?

We may think we decided to get out of the way of the oncoming train, but research shows the decision to move comes after the body begins to move. Why would consciousness evolve if it offers no strategic advantage?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

This does introduce another question - if we assume the Materialist POV, that consciousness is the result of a material process, and can be explained by brain activity, and consciousness can process information - - - look at itself, and it can look at the material world . . . but no one has suggested that consciousness influences matter. IOW, we have no will, free or otherwise.

What then is this consciousness to do? Why are we even talking about it?

We may think we decided to get out of the way of the oncoming train, but research shows the decision to move comes after the body begins to move. Why would consciousness evolve if it offers no strategic advantage?

Try this consciousness as having consciousness(being aware of the process of having an experience) is epiphenomenal, where as higher cognitive functions such as planning how to hunt and kill doesn't appear to require free will. Don't confuse the idea of an I, free will and all that with the evolutionary advantage of with language being able to plan a hunting party (just an example).
IOW we don't have free will, but it doesn't mean we can't learn and plan ahead.

 

[Belz...]

This does introduce another question - if we assume the Materialist POV, that consciousness is the result of a material process, and can be explained by brain activity, and consciousness can process information - - - look at itself, and it can look at the material world . . . but no one has suggested that consciousness influences matter. IOW, we have no will, free or otherwise.

What then is this consciousness to do?

From what I understand it doesn't actually do anything but the system uses it as a feedback loop. It provides an extra survival incentive, primarily.

 

[LarryS]

Try this consciousness as having consciousness(being aware of the process of having an experience) is epiphenomenal, where as higher cognitive functions such as planning how to hunt and kill doesn't appear to require free will. Don't confuse the idea of an I, free will and all that with the evolutionary advantage of with language being able to plan a hunting party (just an example).
IOW we don't have free will, but it doesn't mean we can't learn and plan ahead.

Yes, but I would think at some point consciousness would have to impact matter, for example a hunting strategy is formulated and then written to 'disk', or strategies communicated thru speech. IOW, there has to be a mechanism where a good strategy formulated in consciousness is rewarded with increased functionality in the material world.

 

[Dancing David]

This does introduce another question - if we assume the Materialist POV, that consciousness is the result of a material process, and can be explained by brain activity, and consciousness can process information - - - look at itself, and it can look at the material world . . . but no one has suggested that consciousness influences matter. IOW, we have no will, free or otherwise.

What then is this consciousness to do? Why are we even talking about it?

We may think we decided to get out of the way of the oncoming train, but research shows the decision to move comes after the body begins to move. Why would consciousness evolve if it offers no strategic advantage?

The materialist POV would ask first for you to define that which you ask about.

 

[Nonpareil]

All you have done is simply to assume self-consciousness and assert that reality is subject to human thinking.

I have done neither of these things.

Well it's relevant enough to require that your "is" becomes a "may" (see following quote).

No, it isn't.

Agreed, all sorts of things may be the case, we can only say a thing is the case, when it is irrefutable.

Which is just an attempt to weasel in an edge case where you can say "it isn't really so".

We can say that something is the case when all evidence points to it. Nothing is ever irrefutable in the most technical sense.

There is no way to screen out the mimics(toasters).

Yes, there is.

Show a case in which they do not behave as though they are self-conscious.

No, I am happy to rejoice at the positive results. I just can't see how it can be determined that the result is actually conscious.

Because it meets all the criteria for self-consciousness.

yes, one is attempting to replicate full-self-consciousness, using only part of the mechanism.

You have yet to show that biological structures are part of the mechanism.

Again, every piece of evidence we have points to computation being a necessity, not meat. That all computers that have produced it thus far have been made of meat is irrelevant; there is nothing about the meat that points to inorganic computers being unable to replicate the same process.

The OP is discussing alternative is's, different definitions of is, make no difference. Unless, one is trying to define away the notion of idealism. Which of course you can't, as I have pointed out.

Yes, actually, you can. You have to, in fact, if you want words to mean anything at all. It's incredibly trivial to do so, and the fact that you don't like the idea doesn't change it.

I am not inclined to confine reality to the limits of human thought.

And yet that is what idealism does.

X may be, or may not be, identical to X.

X is X. By definition, it is identical.

This is not complicated.

This does introduce another question - if we assume the Materialist POV, that consciousness is the result of a material process, and can be explained by brain activity, and consciousness can process information - - - look at itself, and it can look at the material world . . . but no one has suggested that consciousness influences matter. IOW, we have no will, free or otherwise.

What then is this consciousness to do? Why are we even talking about it?

We may think we decided to get out of the way of the oncoming train, but research shows the decision to move comes after the body begins to move. Why would consciousness evolve if it offers no strategic advantage?

Conscious volition, to the best of my knowledge, serves as a final check of the output. The rest of the brain comes up with what it wants to do. The signal is sent, and the conscious mind has a short period in which it has the opportunity to override this in case it spots something the rest hasn't.

It's a fascinating subject, really, but I'm not a neuroscientist, so I can't offer much more than that.

 

[Dancing David]

Yes, but I would think at some point consciousness would have to impact matter, for example a hunting strategy is formulated and then written to 'disk', or strategies communicated thru speech. IOW, there has to be a mechanism where a good strategy formulated in consciousness is rewarded with increased functionality in the material world.

This is cognition it sounds like,and it is part of brain function.

 

[LarryS]

This is cognition it sounds like,and it is part of brain function.

we have the 'easy' problem of c-ness, how the brain calculates the contents of c-ness . . . colors, depth, emotive states, ideas and etc.

the 'hard' problem of how the brain generates awareness, ie not just fear, but what it feels like and be aware of being in fear

and now the 'super xl hard' problem of how the epiphenomenon of c-ness writes back to material, or influences material.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

we have the 'easy' problem of c-ness, how the brain calculates the contents of c-ness . . . colors, depth, emotive states, ideas and etc.

the 'hard' problem of how the brain generates awareness, ie not just fear, but what it feels like and be aware of being in fear

and now the 'super xl hard' problem of how the epiphenomenon of c-ness writes back to material, or influences material.

You have created an idea of "what it feels like and be aware of being in fear" and " how the epiphenomenon of c-ness writes back to material, or influences material". Now how do you check if it is not so?

 

[Nonpareil]

we have the 'easy' problem of c-ness, how the brain calculates the contents of c-ness . . . colors, depth, emotive states, ideas and etc.

the 'hard' problem of how the brain generates awareness, ie not just fear, but what it feels like and be aware of being in fear

Qualia don't exist.

and now the 'super xl hard' problem of how the epiphenomenon of c-ness writes back to material, or influences material.

Which is not a problem at all, because consciousness is an emergent property of material systems.

 

[Belz...]

The hard problem of consciousness is based on illusion.

 

[LarryS]

Qualia don't exist.



Which is not a problem at all, because consciousness is an emergent property of material systems.

I got to admit you are quick with the 25 cent answers

 

[LarryS]

The hard problem of consciousness is based on illusion.

You and NonPariel have your feet so stuck in dogma you don't even know how ridiculous you come off.

 

[tsig]

I got to admit you are quick with the 25 cent answers

You want more you pay more.

 

[tsig]

You and NonPariel have your feet so stuck in dogma you don't even know how ridiculous you come off.

Name that dogma.

 

[Belz...]

You and NonPariel have your feet so stuck in dogma you don't even know how ridiculous you come off.

That's a facile statement to make. Anyone can say it to any opponent in any debate about any topic, so it's not very convincing. You could instead show us wrong, somehow.

 

[Dancing David]

we have the 'easy' problem of c-ness, how the brain calculates the contents of c-ness . . . colors, depth, emotive states, ideas and etc.

the 'hard' problem of how the brain generates awareness, ie not just fear, but what it feels like and be aware of being in fear

and now the 'super xl hard' problem of how the epiphenomenon of c-ness writes back to material, or influences material.

Only if you assume something, what can you observe that leads to c-ness to develop directly.
I ask in seriousness because having studied my interior environment extensively it seems to be heterogeneous and not a single unity.

You are making what seems to be a fallacy of construction and asserting that you know consciousness exists and then asserting it is 'easy', the same issue applies to all ontologies.

 

[Dancing David]

I got to admit you are quick with the 25 cent answers

I have to admit you just assume consciousness as a property, try naturalism.

What is it that leads you to assume consciousness exists.

i experience perceptions of different sorts, verbal, visual, auditory cognition, etc...

I am not sure which one is 'consciousness'.