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Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

nytimes.com

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Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#21

Post by kowdermeister »

callesgg wrote: post #2

My personal theory of what consciousness is that it is a feedback loop. I have major issues explaining why i think that but somehow it fits my model. When thinking of consciousness as a feedback loop, stuff sort of makes sense. I have been unable to poke holes in the theory but also unable to add strength to it.

I have come to the same conclusion, but I have some ideas how to back it up. My only concern with packaging it up as a theory is that probably few would take me seriously because I don't have any neuroscience and psychology background.

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#22

Post by nitrogen »

collyw wrote: post #11

"Human conscious experience is wholly a matter of physical goings-on in the body and in particular the brain." Is there any proof of this? The while article seems to hinge on this assumption and then go on from there. We can't see or measure consciousness (brain activity yes, consciousness no). We only experience it. The article makes far to many naive assumptions without any proof.

All the proof you need is the existence of psychoactive chemicals, the effectiveness of transcranial magnetic stimulation, evidence from fMRI studies, and the selective personality alterations that occur in cases of localized brain damage.

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#23

Post by catshirt »

goatlover wrote: post #19
catshirt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because we can't figure out a physical picture of consciousness doesn't mean there isn't one. didn't Descartes try to explain this hundreds of years ago? > it is the physical part that is the big mystery, rather than the consciousness part. you say tomato, i say tomato. seems like the author is trying to mince words or use people's connotations of these words to start an argument.

The author is stating that physicalism (formerly materialism) is true, however, physics fails to fully capture what it is to be physical, because it doesn't not include our experience of said physical world. Basically, our conceptual understanding is lacking. But dualists or idealists might say the same thing, so ...

> Basically, our conceptual understanding is lacking. But dualists or idealists might say the same thing, so ...

my point exactly. :) i'm not sure whose eyes the author is trying to open.

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#24

Post by ffwd »

mynegation wrote: post #12

To echo callesgg elsewhere in this thread, my own pet "theory" is that conciousness is a metacomputation, i.e. not just a process of neural reactions to outside events, but reaction to a process of reaction. For example, understanding the need to convey acquired information to another being to the same species eventually led to the development of language. Figuring out that brain forgets information led to the develo…

But how does this explain the direct subjective experience that we have through our senses (also called the hard problem)?

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#25

Post by jordonwii »

kanzure wrote: post #16
tgflynn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's problematic about the "say no to consciousness" case? It denies the most fundamental fact of human experience, the existence of that experience itself.

> It denies the most fundamental fact of human experience, the existence of that experience itself. How does "saying no to consciousness" deny "the existence of the human experience"? If you were talking about brain denial, then I would have to agree. It seems fully possible for the brain to continue to do interesting things even if "consciousness" turns out to be false. Thankfully it's nonfalsifiable apparently....

It's not clear to me what it would even mean for "consciousness to turn out to be false." The way consciousness is commonly defined (i.e. not with an analytical definition), its existence as a phenomenon can't be false - only our explanations for what it is and how it works.

It would be analogous to telling a physicist trying to provide an explanation for why objects fall to the ground that it might simply turn out to be false that objects fall to the ground at all. That doesn't make sense, because the exploration started with an observable phenomenon.

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#26

Post by tokai »

collyw wrote: post #11

"Human conscious experience is wholly a matter of physical goings-on in the body and in particular the brain." Is there any proof of this? The while article seems to hinge on this assumption and then go on from there. We can't see or measure consciousness (brain activity yes, consciousness no). We only experience it. The article makes far to many naive assumptions without any proof.

Do we have proof of any phenomenon being non-physical?

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#28

Post by callesgg »

0x100000 wrote: post #4
callesgg wrote: post #2

My personal theory of what consciousness is that it is a feedback loop. I have major issues explaining why i think that but somehow it fits my model. When thinking of consciousness as a feedback loop, stuff sort of makes sense. I have been unable to poke holes in the theory but also unable to add strength to it.

You might be interested in reading Douglas Hofstadter's book I Am A Strange Loop.

Ordered a copy, thank you.

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#29

Post by goatlover »

tokai wrote: post #26
collyw wrote: post #11

"Human conscious experience is wholly a matter of physical goings-on in the body and in particular the brain." Is there any proof of this? The while article seems to hinge on this assumption and then go on from there. We can't see or measure consciousness (brain activity yes, consciousness no). We only experience it. The article makes far to many naive assumptions without any proof.

Do we have proof of any phenomenon being non-physical?

Do we have proof of any phenomenon being physical?

What we have are various phenomenon that we attempt to classify. Some would like there to be one meta category we can lump everything into. That's typically called material or physical. But it could also be labelled ideal or mental, from a different categorization scheme.

The problem we've had so far is that some phenomena are not easily placed into the one all-encompassing meta category. It would be easier for us conceptually if we could make it all fit, but we haven't quite succeeded so far.

Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter

#30

Post by kanzure »

jordonwii wrote: post #25
kanzure wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It denies the most fundamental fact of human experience, the existence of that experience itself. How does "saying no to consciousness" deny "the existence of the human experience"? If you were talking about brain denial, then I would have to agree. It seems fully possible for the brain to continue to do interesting things even if "consciousness" turns out to be false. Thankfully it's nonfalsifiable apparently....

It's not clear to me what it would even mean for "consciousness to turn out to be false." The way consciousness is commonly defined (i.e. not with an analytical definition), its existence as a phenomenon can't be false - only our explanations for what it is and how it works. It would be analogous to telling a physicist trying to provide an explanation for why objects fall to the ground that it might simply turn out t…

> It would be analogous to telling a physicist trying to provide an explanation for why objects fall to the ground that it might simply turn out to be false that objects fall to the ground at all.

It is false. Gravity is not about "ground" nor does it require that everything fall to the ground, indeed there seem to be forces on objects stronger than the force of gravity. The ability to falsify concepts is critically important in many branches of epistemology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity

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