From other news: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Backpropagation
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Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
41–50 of 216 posts
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#42Earlier 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.
There are problems with our experience of experience. We think consciousness is continuous, but it can be clearly demonstrated that it's fragmentary. Daniel Dennett demonstrates this using alternating images in his TED talks. However, just because our experience of experience doesn't have 100% fidelity, it doesn't follow that our experience doesn't exist. That would be like saying our vision doesn't exist because it…
It means is that our experience isn't what we think it is, but if the discrepancy is large enough, that's more or less the same thing as saying it doesn't exist.
Basically, if none of the aspects of consciousness that make it important or special in our eyes turn out to be true, I think that denying its existence is actually a less misleading way to correct the record than trying to completely change our intuitive understanding of whatever it is we actually have.
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-encom…
> But it could also be labelled ideal or mental, from a different categorization scheme. Whatever label you put to the category , they are all in the same one.
Wouldn't it depend on what sort of attributes phenomena in the category are supposed to have? If we say that everything is material, then presumably we mean that there is a criteria for what makes something material, probably along the lines of what physicists use to make physical theories.
Otherwise, our category should just be called "everything".
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-encom…
Actually I think the grandparent comment should be read "...proof [of the truth] of any phenomenon..."
I suggest the problem is with the concept "true".
The assumption that all phenomenon have a physical basis is exceedingly practical and produces fantastic predictive success. "True-ness" as it is intuitively defined is not interesting in this case, indeed it may be nonsense.
Stated another way, if we're going to describe "true" as some aspect of reality that we can never directly perceive but only get at through fallible senses and perceptions then we are not only flirting with something that is likely a-priori unprovable but also likely very uninteresting.
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#45> I find this odd because we know exactly what consciousness is
I guess it's solved. I'm glad the NY Times is where I go for my scientific analyses.
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#46"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?
No, but that doesn't automatically make the opposite true.
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the description of brain activity does not capture the experience of being an active brain. The scientific picture of the world is odorless, tasteless, colorless, soundless, etc. It's an abstract, mathematical description. But we don't experience the world that way. There is a massive discrepancy between the two. That's consciousness.
I wouldn't say that's really a problem, because there's a perfectly fine scientific explanation of why it doesn't (couldn't) "capture" this. The experience of color or taste is triggered when information is fed to the brain through specific pathways. The pathways that are activated when we read about something are different and don't reach the same places, so any information you acquire through reading and cognition…
> the experience of color or taste is triggered when information is fed to the brain through specific pathways
The question is why the experience is triggered. Why does moving atoms at specific positions trigger the perception of color or pain? Current physics doesn't have an answer for that, even in theory, assuming we can see exactly what happens in the brain.
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#48My 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.
Feedback loop is a very abstract concept and I honestly do not see any connection to consciousness.
Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#49Re: Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery, It’s Matter
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because we can't figure out a physical picture of consciousness it seems quite unwise to assume that it is without any evidence.
The evidence is that consciousness is tied to the physical somehow (via brains at least). What this means, we haven't been able to figure out. Or at least, there is no consensus.
I am not denying it is tied to the physical, that seems fairly obvious, but it doesn't mean that it is a only physical phenomenon. A radio is not the same as the channel that it is playing and one is tied to the other.