Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002) • Hacker News Board

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#41

Post by newuser3000 » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 11:31 AM UTC

chronolitus wrote: post #37

I've always been more on the materialist side. Reading this, I finally managed to put a finger on something that's been bothering me. Our brain knows it is conscious. If consciousness is an immaterial phenomenon, emerging from those processes, how can the brain know it is conscious? What way could a brain possibly have to measure consciousness? When I refer to brain, i mean the physical, scientifically measurable com…

Without language there is no consciousnesses. That's it. The brain does what it does. We think, occasionally, then imagine that we cause brain to function.

All animals are just dandy without complex language, it's not really a miracle that we are conscious, just a different too.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#42

Post by andrepd » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 11:47 AM UTC

newuser3000 wrote: post #41

chronolitus wrote: post #37

I've always been more on the materialist side. Reading this, I finally managed to put a finger on something that's been bothering me. Our brain knows it is conscious. If consciousness is an immaterial phenomenon, emerging from those processes, how can the brain know it is conscious? What way could a brain possibly have to measure consciousness? When I refer to brain, i mean the physical, scientifically measurable com…

Without language there is no consciousnesses. That's it. The brain does what it does. We think, occasionally, then imagine that we cause brain to function. All animals are just dandy without complex language, it's not really a miracle that we are conscious, just a different too.

Why do you postulate that? Dogs have no language. Are they conscious? You cannot know, can you?

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#43

Post by andrepd » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 11:51 AM UTC

placebo wrote: post #36

Smaug123 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ponder this: the number 15 exists but isn't material. It is an extrapolated common property of physical systems. The number $2^789 - 53$ exists but isn't material; and you've never seen a physical system which embodies that number, but there could plausibly be one. Why could your consciousness not similarly be an extrapolated property of a physical system, without being physical itself?

That's a good question and the answer is that both the sun and the number 15 are concepts created by the mind because creating concepts has great survival value. You are conscious of these concepts. "Consciousness" itself is also a concept you are conscious of. We tend to confuse the map with the territory - perhaps because believing the reality of the map makes us more real and gives a sense of control over things -…

The sun is a physical body that exists despite us, 15 exists only on the mind.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#44

Post by andrepd » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 11:55 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #15

mcbits wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subjective perception is "hard" because everything we know about physics works exactly the same without it, so at this point we have literally no idea where it fits. But this is kind of a predestined result because the way we approach most science is to filter out subjective phenomena as much as possible and examine only so-called objective phenomena.

"Subjective perception is "hard" because everything we know about physics works exactly the same without it, so at this point we have literally no idea where it fits." - Something defined as magically, unexplainably different indeed tautologically can't be explained by physics. - But internal representation of phenomena by the brains of humans certainly seems like it can be explained by biology, physics and general c…

But the internal representation is not the issue. It can almost surely be completely explained by low-level physical laws, if we just had a hypothetical way to accurately image it to a very high resolution. The issue is the subjective experience that accompanies it. We each are sure it exists, for we experience it, yet we don't know how to measure it, indeed it doesn't seem to be conceivable to do so.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#45

Post by andrepd » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 12:04 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #8

"Conscious states include states of perceptual experience, bodily sensation, mental imagery, emotional experience, occurrent thought, and more. There is something it is like to see a vivid green, to feel a sharp pain, to visualize the Eiffel tower, to feel a deep regret, and to think that one is late. Each of these states has a phenomenal character, with phenomenal properties (or qualia) characterizing what it is lik…

> I'm not getting why this is suppose to be "hard".

Because that's not what's hard. Explaining the physical processes of the brain is very, very difficult for the brain is an extremely complex machine (one could say, bar aliens, it is probably the most complex object in the universe). But it's surely not "hard" in a fundamental level. We know the rules of physics applicable to physical systems like the brain. Technically we were able to image it at a very high resolution, and if we had massive computers to solve the equations, we could explain everything going on in the brain. It's difficult, but not "hard".

Yet this would bring us no closer to explaining the subjective conscious experience. Despite the fact that we know it exists, because we experience it, we have no idea how to measure it, how to explain, and why on earth it arises in this specific physical arrangement of atoms called the brain. A computer chip is also very complex, and integrates information. Is it conscious? We don't know and we will never know because any other consciousness other than ours is fundamentally inaccessible. In other words, this is a "hard" problem.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#46

Post by red75prime » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 12:09 PM UTC

dilemma wrote: post #31

biofox wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the fact that these opinions exist is evidence that p-zombies walk amongst us?

I know one exists, and it is pretty well-known: Daniel Dennett.

He lacks p-consciousness (logical construct, which is used to guess existence of p-zombies), not a phenomenal one.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#47

Post by riesnerd » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 1:29 PM UTC

I wonder why NYU Professor of Philosophy Thomas Nagels 2012 book "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False" until this point hasn't been mentioned in this thread?

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

https://books.google.de/books?id=pOzNcdmhjIYC&printsec=front...

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#48

Post by nvch » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 2:41 PM UTC

chronolitus wrote: post #37

I've always been more on the materialist side. Reading this, I finally managed to put a finger on something that's been bothering me. Our brain knows it is conscious. If consciousness is an immaterial phenomenon, emerging from those processes, how can the brain know it is conscious? What way could a brain possibly have to measure consciousness? When I refer to brain, i mean the physical, scientifically measurable com…

The brain does not know. "Knowing" and "consciousness" are processes in the brain. It's about one process "aware" about another process.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#49

Post by CuriouslyC » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 2:45 PM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #40

chronolitus wrote: post #37

I've always been more on the materialist side. Reading this, I finally managed to put a finger on something that's been bothering me. Our brain knows it is conscious. If consciousness is an immaterial phenomenon, emerging from those processes, how can the brain know it is conscious? What way could a brain possibly have to measure consciousness? When I refer to brain, i mean the physical, scientifically measurable com…

Technically there's also "The brain thinks it's conscious, but has no reason to believe that. Separately, it is also conscious." Ie. Epiphenomenalism.

The problem with epiphenomenalism is that we are wired to behave in ways that optimize the pleasure our consciousness experiences. If consciousness was just a byproduct, there wouldn't be such a strong relationship between conscious experience and survival value.

Re: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

#50

Post by CuriouslyC » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 2:49 PM UTC

newuser3000 wrote: post #41

chronolitus wrote: post #37

I've always been more on the materialist side. Reading this, I finally managed to put a finger on something that's been bothering me. Our brain knows it is conscious. If consciousness is an immaterial phenomenon, emerging from those processes, how can the brain know it is conscious? What way could a brain possibly have to measure consciousness? When I refer to brain, i mean the physical, scientifically measurable com…

Without language there is no consciousnesses. That's it. The brain does what it does. We think, occasionally, then imagine that we cause brain to function. All animals are just dandy without complex language, it's not really a miracle that we are conscious, just a different too.

Language is a learned behavior. Consciousness is a property of the learner. Language may influence conscious experience, but it certainly doesn't create it.