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Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

Dancing David said:
It is also a moot point, until there is a consequence of ontology. They are all the same, there is the apparent reality.
So until there is a demonstrable difference between ontologies, it doesn't matter what the ontology is.
It doesn't matter if things exist in and of themselves.
They behave as though they do.

Butterfly dreams
Brains In Vats
godthought
dancing energy

All the same=apparent reality
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Yes - except reality has no single fixed ontology, there is no 'Truth'. Consequences and ontologies are an artifact of the mind.
 
Sorry getting hit by a car and suffering an injury is real, especially when you are knocked unconscious by the car. 'You' have no mind at that point, yet if that apparent body perishes then the mind does as well.

Be it it godthought, brain in vat, butterfly dream or dancing energy.
 
Dancing David said:
Sorry getting hit by a car and suffering an injury is real, especially when you are knocked unconscious by the car. 'You' have no mind at that point, yet if that apparent body perishes then the mind does as well.

Be it it godthought, brain in vat, butterfly dream or dancing energy.
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funny thing is we agree on all these points - but how we understand them is different
 
LarryS said:
I am attempting to begin with the most basic claims, claims that require no beliefs or assertions. If you can't or won't accept these claims, then I suggest you give it a shot . . . you provide a starting point, the most basic claim(s) that require no beliefs or assertions.

1) our most fundamental experience is 'being present, being aware'. By this I mean, 'I exist, and I am aware'
2) experiences occur in awareness, I see the tree, I am tasting peanut butter, I am remembering my grandmother's face, etc.; all these experiences occur in awareness as in I am aware of these contents - these contents appear in awareness.

Note: I am not making any claims re reality, what it's made of, or how it exists and etc.
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Larry, this is all the same things that we discussed in your last reply, but where you keep changing the words from “consciousness” to “awareness” to “experiencing”, but where you are in fact using all those words interchangeably to mean the same thing. I'll deal briefly with that below (though as I say we actually dealt with that in your previous couple of posts), but first I really do have to point out that your last sentence where you say “I am not making any claims re reality, what it's made of, or how it exists and etc., is simply untrue – you most certainly have been claiming that reality does not exist except within your own thoughts ... you have made numerous statements saying that, and several of us have quoted your statements back to you a number of times … in fact you have made those exact same denials of reality in exactly the same words many times in previous threads here, and I quoted those statements back to you in all those previous threads too.

However, that apart – you are using the words “consciousness”, “awareness” and now the word “experience”, interchangeably to mean exactly the same thing, and yet you are still trying define or explain “consciousness” by saying it's the state of being “aware” and saying that your “experiences occur in awareness” … but as I just explained in the previous replies, that is a completely circular and empty statement from you … you are just saying that “consciousness is consciousness” …

… what you are calling your “experiences” ARE your conscious thoughts … and that's identical with what you are calling “awareness” …. that is all precisely what you have been calling “consciousness”.

But when you now say “I see the tree, I am tasting peanut butter, I am remembering my grandmother's face, etc.; all these experiences occur in awareness”, that is exactly the same statement as you gave before when you said “I see a clock on the wall”, and I already explained why any statement like that is just an admission of you using normal human eyesight when you are awake, or if you are dreaming then the same thoughts are simply being reproduced from your memory … and both eyesight and memory are fairly well understood in medicine, and they are certainly not any kind of evidence to show that an external reality does not exist … they are just perfectly normal effects produced by entirely normal brain function and the working of the sensory/nervous system in all higher animals … none of that is any great mystery, and it's certainly not what ancient outdated unscientific philosophy likes to keep calling “the hard problem of consciousness”.
 
LarryS said:
difference being that 'being present, being aware' is not a belief.
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Of course it is! You are believing what you think you feel is "real", you could simply be the imagining of the solipsist, or a simulation that is programmed to think it has awareness.
 
LarryS said:
No, I am claiming there is reality, and events occurring in consciousness have real consequences. There's no evidence that reality it is an independent and physical reality - that is a belief, that's an assertion.
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Well firstly that is NOT what you said before. In previous posts here, and in previous threads you repeatedly used the following statements "this all occurs within consciousness" and "everything occurs within consciousness" ... but as I pointed out to you in previous threads as well as in this thread, you cannot make that statement ... because you do not know if it all occurs within consciousness ... it might just as well occur, in fact almost certainly does occur, as events in a real external world entirely irrespective of you having any consciousness (or you even having any existence!).

If you meant to say something like "we can only detect any apparent reality by using our only means of detection which is a brain together with a sensory system and a nervous system, which together produces what we call our conscious awareness of anything", then that's what you should have said! ... and I have pointed that out to you a number of times in previous threads, but you have continued here to write the same statement saying "everything occurs within consciousness" ... but to repeat, you certainly do not know that to be true ... e.g. try actually proving that it all occurs within your consciousness, because when you state it as an absolute fact (which you are doing) that means you MUST have an absolute proof of your claim ...

... all of your thoughts about anything could be said to be "all occurring within your mind", but that certainly does not mean that what you detect has no existence outside of your thoughts. So you certainly cannot say that the events themselves "all occur within my consciousness".

You probably want to claim that your statement does not exclude the events occurring outside of your consciousness. But you are wrong. That statement of yours does exclude an external reality, because when you say "it all occurs within consciousness", that statement excludes any of it happening anywhere else ... if "everything" & "it all" occurs within your consciousness then that leaves nothing else to occur in any other place except inside your so-called "consciousness"; and I have pointed that out that to you several times before.

I think you are just trying play a word game, like so much of philosophy does. But you are extending your game of semantics to claim that it encompasses all of known reality and claiming that it does so as a rejection of everything in science. However, your semantic terminology is simply wrong ... even your philosophical time-wasting word game is incorrect.
 
LarryS said:
I have never claimed that clocks and etc. aren't real, nor have I claimed they are a product of your/our/everyone's imagination. There is a strong bias in this thread, and which is reinforced by the semantics of our language (as in an expression such as I see the tree)- - - that if anyone claims there is no evidence of a physical reality, and that experience occurs in awareness; then that means that the reality which is being proposed is somehow less real, or a product of imagination. This is a bias people bring to the conversation, not a claim I am making.
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You have claimed that you don't believe in the existence of matter. You find it more parsimonious to assume the external world is a product of consciousness, not matter.
Now you say you do believe that the external things we perceive are actually real.
Then your model isn't functionally distinct from materialism.
Either everything consists of matter and energy, or everything consists of consciousness that appears to act exactly as matter and energy would.
You claim Occam's razor favors your version because you experience consciousness directly and matter would be the extraneous entity.
Others claim the materialist version is favored because your primacy of mind would create an entire world of consciousness that does not act like consciousness at all, but rather like something that acts exactly like matter to the rest of consciousness.

But it's all a rather pedantic semantic quibble... Hardly anything to base all of your complaints about materialism on...

So, be clear... What are your problems with the materialist hypothesis, and why is yours better?
As far as I can tell your only argument is that you experience consciousness directly, and therefore... Well, you haven't gotten there yet.
 
LarryS said:
No, I am claiming there is reality, and events occurring in consciousness have real consequences. There's no evidence that reality it is an independent and physical reality - that is a belief, that's an assertion.
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There's lots of evidence to show that a real universe exists regardless of whether you and your consciousness even exist at all. In fact all known evidence shows that to be the case (and that now amounts to a mountain of evidence so huge as to be beyond most peoples comprehension).

What I think you really mean, and the only accurate thing you could actually say, is that it's not possible to literally "prove" that a real universe exists outside of what any of us call our "consciousness". But that's a completely worthless and empty point for you/philosophy to make, because it's not possible to literally "prove" anything at all …

... you cannot even prove that you are having any specific conscious thoughts about anything! The so-called "thoughts" themselves might be an illusion ... your experience of "consciousness" might be an unreal illusion ... it could be a false belief implanted into your brain by some alien experimenters ... your entire notion of having any conscious thoughts might be a computer simulation ... you cannot literally "prove" that it's not.

So not only do you not know whether external reality exists, you also do not know if the thoughts which you call your “consciousness” are real either!

That's why ancient philosophers who dreamed up the idea of saying “the only thing I can know for certain is that I exist (or that my consciousness exists)", are of course wrong – they cannot even know that as a matter of literal “certainty”. And that's why scientists are almost always far more cautious and would not claim to know as an absolute certainty that they themselves or anything else actually “exists” … I would not not seriously claim anything like that, for example. I'm convinced that reality does exist, and that it's more-or-less as described by current science, but why should I go further and claim that anything is “certain”?? … it's not necessary to claim certainty about anything, and there's no advantage to such a claim …

… instead it's more than sufficient to just describe what we discover and detect by whatever methods and calculations seem to us (or to the most expert people in the field) to be the most accurate that we can produce … and from there we test everything in every way conceivably possible and as objectively and independently as reasonably possible (and that's called “science”) … the other subjects, such the one you are relying upon, i.e. philosophy, are by definition “not science”, because they are not attempting to “test everything in every way conceivably possible” and they are not checking & testing “as objectively and independently as reasonably possible” … they are failing to do any of that ... which is why subjects like philosophy have become such a total and deliberate waste of everyone valuable time.
 
None of that matters on a purely practical level. All each of us knows for sure is that we exist and that we exist in a physical universe where other people and objects exist. It makes no difference if our experiences are some kind of illusion because, from our perspective, everything seems pretty real.

I don't see the utility in musing about us being in a computer simulation, being a figment of God's imagination, etc.
 
IanS said:
What I think you really mean, and the only accurate thing you could actually say, is that it's not possible to literally "prove" that a real universe exists outside of what any of us call our "consciousness". But that's a completely worthless and empty point for you/philosophy to make, because it's not possible to literally "prove" anything at all …

... you cannot even prove that you are having any specific conscious thoughts about anything! The so-called "thoughts" themselves might be an illusion ... your experience of "consciousness" might be an unreal illusion ... it could be a false belief implanted into your brain by some alien experimenters ... your entire notion of having any conscious thoughts might be a computer simulation ... you cannot literally "prove" that it's not.
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Yeah but they do have a point that the experience of having thoughts happens, and so that at the very least, the "observer" exists. What they do with that then, of course, is ridiculous.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18065241
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<chuckle> Of course if you define qualia as something that already has other terms and ask people if they experience something that fits the definition they'll report having qualia. But if I define "smurf" as the feeling of pain AND as the visual experience of a happy blue-skinned gnome, and then poke someone in the ribs, they'll report seeing a smurf.

And we're still nowhere near detecting qualia. I don't have qualia. I have experiences. Those are processes of my brain. If you define "qualia" as "experiences", then I'll report having qualia. But that's not what we're told qualia are. They're supposed to be a fundamental aspect of experience, such that no one could report having them any more than anyone could report having electrical impulses in their brain.
 
Gabriel Guerrer's 2017 experiment appears to replicate Dean Radin's results.

Guerrer_experiment said:
Motivated by a series of reported experiments and their controversial results, the present work investigated if volunteers could causally affect an optical double-slit system through mental efforts alone. The participants' task alternated between intending the increase of the (real-time feedback informed) amount of light diffracted through a specific single slit and relaxing any intention effort. The 160 data sessions that 127 volunteers took part in revealed a statistically significant 4.68 sigma difference between the measurements performed in the intention versus the relax conditions ($p=2.93\times10^{-6}; \, es= 0.47 \pm 0.20$ 95\% CL), while the 160 control sessions conducted without any observers present resulted in statistically equivalent samples ($z=0.35, \, p=0.73; \, es=0.04 \pm 0.20$ 95\% CL). The results could not be explained by environmental factors, hence supporting the previously claimed existence of a not yet understood form of interaction between a conscious agent and a physical system.
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IanS said:
... which is why subjects like philosophy have become such a total and deliberate waste of everyone valuable time.
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If you (and others) claim that the only possible definition of real is an independent physical reality, and to discuss any other philosophy/possibility is a waste of valuable time - then why would you even scan a forum with a title of Religion and Philosophy? You should stick with pure materialist threads where you won't be challenged, and your time not wasted.
And you are correct in that if you can't accept the claim "I exist, I am present, I am aware" as certain - and, if I can't accept the claim 'an independent and physical world exists' as certain - - then we don't have a starting point in this conversation.
 
LarryS said:
funny thing is we agree on all these points - but how we understand them is different
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As a progressive nihilist I assume that all thoughts , words and concepts are models at best, which includes sensations and perceptions. Some are valid in predicting the apparent reality, others not so much.

When someone suggest a way of determining ontology I will be all eyes and ears
 
IanS said:
There's lots of evidence to show that a real universe exists regardless of whether you and your consciousness even exist at all. In fact all known evidence shows that to be the case (and that now amounts to a mountain of evidence so huge as to be beyond most peoples comprehension).

What I think you really mean, and the only accurate thing you could actually say, is that it's not possible to literally "prove" that a real universe exists outside of what any of us call our "consciousness". But that's a completely worthless and empty point for you/philosophy to make, because it's not possible to literally "prove" anything at all …

... you cannot even prove that you are having any specific conscious thoughts about anything! The so-called "thoughts" themselves might be an illusion ... your experience of "consciousness" might be an unreal illusion ... it could be a false belief implanted into your brain by some alien experimenters ... your entire notion of having any conscious thoughts might be a computer simulation ... you cannot literally "prove" that it's not.

So not only do you not know whether external reality exists, you also do not know if the thoughts which you call your “consciousness” are real either!

That's why ancient philosophers who dreamed up the idea of saying “the only thing I can know for certain is that I exist (or that my consciousness exists)", are of course wrong – they cannot even know that as a matter of literal “certainty”. And that's why scientists are almost always far more cautious and would not claim to know as an absolute certainty that they themselves or anything else actually “exists” … I would not not seriously claim anything like that, for example. I'm convinced that reality does exist, and that it's more-or-less as described by current science, but why should I go further and claim that anything is “certain”?? … it's not necessary to claim certainty about anything, and there's no advantage to such a claim …

… instead it's more than sufficient to just describe what we discover and detect by whatever methods and calculations seem to us (or to the most expert people in the field) to be the most accurate that we can produce … and from there we test everything in every way conceivably possible and as objectively and independently as reasonably possible (and that's called “science”) … the other subjects, such the one you are relying upon, i.e. philosophy, are by definition “not science”, because they are not attempting to “test everything in every way conceivably possible” and they are not checking & testing “as objectively and independently as reasonably possible” … they are failing to do any of that ... which is why subjects like philosophy have become such a total and deliberate waste of everyone valuable time.
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Yay!

Philosophy is a way to while away the hours...
 
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