Consciousness

[LNC]

Another thing about consciousness is that it is only the tip of the iceberg. It seems like a mighty colossus, but no matter how grand consciousness appears to itself most of what happens in the brain is out of sight. The brain does many different processes and one of these processes is self or self awareness. Some of the bits that produce a self in a particular brain can be damaged and consequently the self that is generated in that brain isn't what we are used to. Some times the self isn't there at all even if the body keeps chugging along.

 

Another indication that self is something the brain does is that the self has to develop as the brain grows. It is does not spring from the womb fully formed like Stewie. We tend to feel that the self is a continuous whole, but if you examine it i.e. examine the story, the self is quite episodic. Rather than being a single novel the self is a collection of short stories. If you follow the story back as far as you can you will find that the story/self doesn't go back to the beginning. I can remember one and only one story from my 3rd year, and after that there is nothing until age 5 save maybe some vague jumble of Christmas impressions and the Lone Ranger. It was then that I made the decision to grow up to be a horse. Some say I succeeded in that quest.

 

We feel as if the conscious is in charge of the system because the conscious is only conscious of what the brain assigns to it. It is not conscious of the rest of what the brain is doing. For example, there are some studies that indicate that the the conscious bit is the last to know what is going on in making a decision by as much as half a second.

 

I don't see why your explanations are anything more than question-begging. I see no reason from what you have said that these features must be solely attributed to brain function. What does it mean that the brain is aware of itself? In fact, if we are only conscious of what the brain assigns to it, how would we even have knowledge of this? We would never be able to trust anything as we may be just a brain in a vat with the brain fooling us into thinking that we are having 3rd person experiences. The reason that I keep pointing back to the initial questions is that it helps us to stay focused on addressing these fundamental issues and try to address them from a particular viewpoint, be it physicalist/materialist or a type of dualism.

 

LNC

[LNC]

A. A robot will not become conscious because someone defines it conscious. Philosophers are, sorry to say, most often decades lagging behind science. Nothing to gain from them. If you have theories about the mind, why not test them in simulations and on robots?

 

I guess that the point is whether a machine with sophisticated circuitry could ever become conscious. I think your statement about philosophy is quite uninformed as many of the greatest scientists throughout history were also philosophers. In fact, many were philosophers first and scientists second. Some were even theologians...So, I think that there is a great deal to gain from philosophers and see no reason that you give to write them off. Science was birthed from philosophy, in case you weren't aware.

 

B. The definition of knowledge - as justified, as true, and as believed - needs then repair. :-) A robot can learn its environment by interacting with it in a certain way. It learns invariances of its own body and invariances of the environment by virtue of those interactions. Those interactions are really dependent on the environment. For example, a crawling baby of say 8 months learns that it will fall over on a slope and - after three or four times - it will not go down the slope anymore. However, if the baby learns to walk in say 13 months, it sees this slope from a different angle, and needs again three or four times falling down, to not to go down that same slope anymore. In both cases the baby learned, which in my - I admit - simple world, means acquiring knowledge. So, it means that knowledge is highly context-dependent. If knowledge need to be "true" in all imaginable universes, I will throw this type of philosophy once more in the garbage bin.

 

I didn't define knowledge "as justified, as true, and as believed," I defined it the way that it is generally accepted in philosophy, as justified true belief. That definition came from Plato, who I would say knew a good deal about the subject. A robot acquires information and processes it through its programming, but it doesn't believe anything about that information. A person, as he or she acquires information either believes it or not. As the human tests his/her information and justifies that it is true, then it becomes knowledge. You may throw Plato in the dust bin, but I would guess that his ideas will certainly outlive yours.

 

C. If intentionality only means that something is a representamen in a semiotic sense for that what it represents, what can I say? Of course a robot can have mental phenomena that are directed upon an object, whether real or imaginary. There is nothing magic about that.

 

A robot has intentionality that is derived from its programming, it does not possess intrinsic intentionality as we humans do. In other words, we have beliefs and desires of or about things and circumstances for which a robot cannot possess. Meaning that we apply to these events and things is not derived from someone or something else. Take a map of New York City for instance, it has intentionality in that it is about the city of New York. However, it only has intentionality if someone picks it up and reads it off the sheet of paper (or computer screen), it does not have intentionality in and of itself. Its intentionality was also derived from the maker of the map. The same goes for a robot, it only has intentionality because it has been programmed to work processes of or about things; however, it has no beliefs or desires of or about the things about which it is processing data. Robots do not have mental phenomena, they only have processes going on. For example, a robot can never operate other than what its programming allows it to do. Unless it is programmed to alter its programming, it can never decide to do so. If it is programmed to alter its programming, it can only do so within the parameters that are set with that programming (unless, of course other programming, say a virus, alters that programming).

 

Do you have the same difficulties in defining if something is alife? Most kids do quite well. What purpose has philosophy if it makes things only more complex? Why not use it to explain things?

 

The purpose of philosophy is not to make things more complex, it is to help us understand that which is already complex. In other words, it does what you asked, it explains our world.

 

LNC

[Petrel]

Robots do not have mental phenomena, they only have processes going on. For example, a robot can never operate other than what its programming allows it to do. Unless it is programmed to alter its programming, it can never decide to do so. If it is programmed to alter its programming, it can only do so within the parameters that are set with that programming (unless, of course other programming, say a virus, alters that programming).

Same with people. Infants are born with brains that are constructed in a way that makes them suitable for learning language, interacting socially, and so forth. So the underlying programming is present. But these capacities need to be utilized in order to develop. As an infant grows it starts to learn to speak, interact, see, walk, and so forth, all using underlying programming and fine-tuning it by trial and error and interaction with the environment. If you interfere with this fine-tuning at this early stage, damage can result which that person will be incapable of correcting (s/he cannot modify the programming outside the limits of the initial setup). Scientists are working on making artificial intelligences that have to develop in a similar manner to a child by learning from these types of interactions. Everything our research in neurology has taught us is that the human consciousness is the product of the human brain, and that brain is a sophisticated computer that gathers and integrates information. If we produce a complex enough computer capable of such integration, it will become conscious.

[LNC]

But take a pile of cells in the shape of a human and all of a sudden there must be something other than the cells, their patterns, and processes that somehow supplies humanness to a human.

 

Here I would agree with you wholeheartedly. However, I think you get too tripped up by adding the supernatural element to the conversation. Let's just stick with the question of whether we are merely the sum of our parts. Are we just material entities and nothing more? I think your transporter illustration makes a good point. If a computer were able to disassemble our parts (person A) and then send their makeup to a device that could assemble parts in with the same makeup(person , would person B be the same as person A? Clearly not from a physicalist viewpoint as the same stuff was not used for person B as was used from person A. So, what would make person B the same as person A? Do memories make a person who they are? What if a person suffered permanent amnesia, would that person stop being who they were before suffering amnesia? What about features? If a person suffered an amputation, would they become a different person? What about personality? If a person suffered a personality disorder or mental breakdown...? You get the idea. What makes a person who they are?

 

LNC

[LNC]

Thursday I was in Zürich

 

Hey, no bragging! Seriously, Zürich is a beautiful city.

 

on the conference "Cognitive Systems" where O'Regan was a keynote speaker who talked about the notion of "feel" (see http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author%3Ao%27regan%20feel for some of his articles). He spoke about the rubber hand illusion, see e.g. this movie:

After you see a rubber hand stroked synchronously with your own invisible hand, in the end you are thinking that the rubber hand is yours. If someone then attacks the rubber hand, the reaction is quite obvious. :-) Anyway, I was asking O'Regan if it is the case that a robot would "feel" if it is possible to induce a rubber hand illusion in a robot. He thought that it was not only a prerequisite, but that it would be sufficient indeed. (Nice for me, because I think I might happen to have something on the shelf which I can implement on a robot. I'll tell you later if I succeed.)

 

Just a story to tell that we might perhaps not need a human brain for consciousness to exist. But the substrate should probably have some brain-like characteristics. In this "speciest" era it is already hard for people to think that animals are aware of their environment and themselves, have emotions, or heaven forbid, feel pain. Indoctrinated by our Judeo-Christianese descent and our dietary habits, we might be encountering quite some surprises regarding the real nature of consciousness.

 

Perhaps we just want ourselves to be the only thing conscious...

 

I will look forward to hearing of your results. I noticed in the YouTube video the reactions of two people who were shown (in separate videos) and I'm not sure whether the reaction was a phantom hand reaction or simply a reaction to the movement. In the first case, the person stabbing comes from the side and the patient removes his left hand which would have been in the direction that the knife or fork was coming in (he didn't move his right hand as the weapon was past that hand). In the second, it was the researcher who does the stabbing from strait on and the patient doesn't move either hand. So, I'm not sure that we can glean anything solid from these experiments.

 

Also, the eating of meat is not a Judeo-Christian invention or a mandate. Yes, people in the Bible ate meat as did people in surrounding areas, people before them and people after them. However, there is nothing in the Bible that says that a person must eat meat, so I'm not sure why you bring that red herring into the conversation. The Jewish dietary restrictions were just that, what not to eat, not what to eat.

 

Also, the Bible makes it clear that humans are not the only conscious beings. The OT calls certain animals "soulish" creatures, meaning that they have souls and consciousness. If anything, the Bible tells man to be a good steward of creation, something that, to a great extent, man has forgotten since then.

 

LNC

[LNC]

Naturalistic explanations/theories are the only explanations backed up by research, LNC.

 

I don't believe that is the case. In fact, there are a number of organizations that study near death experiences (NDE) and many accounts of NDE don't fit with naturalistic explanations. That is just one example.

 

Philosophy cannot fully explain consciousness.

 

Nobody can fully explain consciousness at this point; however, there are various philosophical theories and some better explain the phenomenon than others.

 

Here is one theory of consciousness:

 

The model, called the “global workspace” model, posits that incoming information becomes conscious only when three conditions are met. First, the information must be represented by networks of sensory neurons, such as those in the primary visual cortex at the rear of the brain, that process incoming visual signals. Second, this representation must last long enough to gain access to (“come to the attention of”) a second stage of processing, distributed across the brain's cortex, and especially involving the prefrontal cortex, which is believed to be a major center for associating multiple kinds of information. Third and finally, this combination of bottom-up information propagation and top-down amplification through attention must “ignite” to create a state of reverberating, coherent activity among many different brain centers. That, according to the model, is what we experience as consciousness.

 

Another theory

 

Much work on the brain basis of vision and visual consciousness rests on the idea that for

every conscious state of seeing (for every visual experience) there is a neural substrate

whose activation is sufficient to produce it. It is widely supposed, in addition, that the

function of this neural substrate is to produce sensory experience by generating a

“representation” of what is experienced (Chalmers 2000). On this way of thinking, then,

vision is the process in the brain whereby such a representation is produced.

 

 

According to this view, vision is not a process in the brain. Though the brain is necessary

for vision, neural processes are not, in themselves, sufficient to produce seeing. Instead,

we claim that seeing is an exploratory activity mediated by the animal’s mastery of

sensorimotor contingencies. That is, seeing is a skill-based activity of environmental

exploration. Visual experience is not something that happens in us. It is something we do.

 

Seeing, on this view, is comparable to dancing with a partner. Just as dancing consists in

a delicate interaction between two partners, so seeing, we argue, depends on patterns of

interaction between the perceiver and the environment. There is no doubt that neural

activity is necessary to enable one’s skillful participation in a dance, but it is unlikely this

neural activity is sufficient to give rise to the dancing. After all, the dance, with its

weight changes, moments of disequlibria and rebounds, depends on the actions

and reactions of the partner (not to mention the nonbrain body). For exactly similar reasons,

we argue,neural activity is not sufficient to produce visual experience. Seeing does not

consist in the activation of neural structures (even though it causally depends upon such activation).

A further consequence of this approach to seeing and visual experience — seeing is

something we do, not something that takes place inside us — is that it allows us to

develop a new framework for thinking about the qualitative character of experience. One

of the chief advantages of this new framework, we argue, is that it enables us to

overcome the famous problem of the explanatory gap (Levine 1983).

 

Consciousness involves the processes of both brain and body, and direct interaction (and experiences) with the environment. Though the mind "views" a representation of reality, our sense of touch is direct. IOW, our skin directly interacts with the environment. We are sensory beings, and our senses serve us well. They adequately provide us with knowledge that enables us to thrive.

 

Why don't you take the initial questions and apply these theories to them and see how they would answer them. Consciousness seems to be the focus of many of you; however, it is just one piece of the puzzle to be solved, albeit, an important piece of the puzzle.

 

LNC

[LNC]

I tried. I really tried, but after you have shown willful ignorance, I can't repeat myself ad infinitum and expect a different response from you.

 

It is so clearcut, so simple, and easy to understand.

 

Question to any Ex-Christian: Is the connection between the developement of intelligence and evolution too complicated?

 

One cell ......................................... Human

----------------------Evolution of intelligence----

 

Just as any organ evolves, it is clear the nervous system has evolved over the past several billion years. Res ipsi loquitur.

 

If one studies evolution, one learns these things.

 

So, you answer with the word, "evolution" and I am supposed to just accept that answer? It is not so clearcut as you seem to suggest and simply asserting evolution will not solve a mystery that has confounded philosophers and scientists for centuries. Sorry, your overly simplistic assertion does not equate to anything more than an empty assertion backed up by nothing. That is not how philosophy or science is done.

 

LNC

[Shyone]

I tried. I really tried, but after you have shown willful ignorance, I can't repeat myself ad infinitum and expect a different response from you.

 

It is so clearcut, so simple, and easy to understand.

 

Question to any Ex-Christian: Is the connection between the developement of intelligence and evolution too complicated?

 

One cell ......................................... Human

----------------------Evolution of intelligence----

 

Just as any organ evolves, it is clear the nervous system has evolved over the past several billion years. Res ipsi loquitur.

 

If one studies evolution, one learns these things.

 

So, you answer with the word, "evolution" and I am supposed to just accept that answer? It is not so clearcut as you seem to suggest and simply asserting evolution will not solve a mystery that has confounded philosophers and scientists for centuries. Sorry, your overly simplistic assertion does not equate to anything more than an empty assertion backed up by nothing. That is not how philosophy or science is done.

 

LNC

Jesus Christ. Backed up by nothing. Holy smoke. You are willfully ignorant.

 

Humans were preceded by several species that were preceded by others. Awww, why am I bothering.

 

Nevermind. Live in your fantasy world or get educated. It's not my problem.

[Petrel]

So, what would make person B the same as person A? Do memories make a person who they are? What if a person suffered permanent amnesia, would that person stop being who they were before suffering amnesia? What about features? If a person suffered an amputation, would they become a different person? What about personality? If a person suffered a personality disorder or mental breakdown...? You get the idea. What makes a person who they are?LNC

As long as we're waxing philosophical, I'll answer this with a question: Can a man step in the same river twice?

 

So, you answer with the word, "evolution" and I am supposed to just accept that answer? It is not so clearcut as you seem to suggest and simply asserting evolution will not solve a mystery that has confounded philosophers and scientists for centuries. Sorry, your overly simplistic assertion does not equate to anything more than an empty assertion backed up by nothing. That is not how philosophy or science is done.LNC

I don't think you have much grasp on how science is done, since the goal of science is to search for answers (which you assume unattainable) through examination of physical evidence (which you consider inadequate).

 

Appeal to ignorance is a poor grounds for argument. Scientists and philosophers argued over what combustion was for centuries--so science will never explain it. Scientists and philosophers have argued over what gravity is and how it works for centuries--so science will never explain it. Scientists and philosophers have argued over what the basic substance of matter is for centuries--so science will never explain it. Considering all of these claims have been shown to be woefully wrong, you shouldn't be so confident in the inability of science to explain consciousness, especially when we have made such strides in understanding the human brain and its structural requirements for consciousness, and have come up with testable theories on how consciousness originates. The evidence shows that consciousness is an emergent property of a sufficiently complex brain. You are the one who needs to provide evidence to support your extraordinary claim that consciousness is produced by a ghost in the machine.

 

The machine is the ghost.

[Legion]

Yes, as I have asserted...

 

We do not yet explicitly understand the mind, but this does not imply the mind will forever remain a mystery.

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun.

 

ten minutes later...

 

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind.

[Shyone]

Yes, as I have asserted...

 

We do not yet explicitly understand the mind, but this does not imply the mind will forever remain a mystery.

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun.

 

ten minutes later...

 

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind.

I would have written:

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: There isn't one. Don't bother looking.

 

ten minutes later...

 

[silence]

[Legion]

Yes, as I have asserted...

 

We do not yet explicitly understand the mind, but this does not imply the mind will forever remain a mystery.

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun.

 

ten minutes later...

 

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind.

I would have written:

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: There isn't one. Don't bother looking.

 

ten minutes later...

 

[silence]

Either way seems pretty defeatist to me Shyone.

[Petrel]

Same thing with evolution.

 

Curious person: "Look at these commonalities among these organisms! They must mean something, let's figure it out!"

Creationist: "They don't mean anything. God just made 'em that way. Don't waste your time."

 

Boring!

[agnosticator]

I don't believe that is the case. In fact, there are a number of organizations that study near death experiences (NDE) and many accounts of NDE don't fit with naturalistic explanations. That is just one example.

 

Of course a subjective thing such as a NDE is not experimentally verifiable. That's where it is convenient to chalk it up to supernatural explanations. I've had one myself, and I don't buy that it doesn't fit a naturalistic explanation. See here for a good general naturalistic explanation.

 

 

Why don't you take the initial questions and apply these theories to them and see how they would answer them.

 

That's why I posted these quotes. They answer question #1, 2, and 4.

 

 

Consciousness seems to be the focus of many of you; however, it is just one piece of the puzzle to be solved, albeit, an important piece of the puzzle.

 

I thought the thread was about consciousness. Which puzzle? Consciousness is a small part of the mind/body of humans. I realize that.

[Ouroboros]

Yes, as I have asserted...

 

We do not yet explicitly understand the mind, but this does not imply the mind will forever remain a mystery.

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun.

 

ten minutes later...

 

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind. Therefore Jesus...

 

We can't explain it with natural means.

We can't explain it with supernatural means.

Therefore supernatural wins. (right?)

 

I wonder why the Gary Habermas's minimal facts approach isn't applicable to Evolution when it explains the mind? How many scientists accept Evolution as the explanation to the mind? If there is a large enough group agreeing on it, then it should be accepted. Isn't that the Habermas approach?

[Legion]

How many scientists accept Evolution as the explanation to the mind?

Well there is no doubt (in my mind) that minds have evolved. But I can understand the general way that a clock was made, and still not understand why clocks operate as they do. Right? In other words, isn't there a difference between understanding how something came to exist and understanding the existence itself?

 

If there is a large enough group agreeing on it, then it should be accepted.

I hope you're joking Hans. Consensus does not imply correctness. We can both agree and both be mistaken.

[Ouroboros]

How many scientists accept Evolution as the explanation to the mind?

Well there is no doubt (in my mind) that minds have evolved. But I can understand the general way that a clock was made, and still not understand why clocks operate as they do. Right? In other words, isn't there a difference between understanding how something came to exist and understanding the existence itself?

Right.

 

If there is a large enough group agreeing on it, then it should be accepted.

I hope you're joking Hans. Consensus does not imply correctness. We can both agree and both be mistaken.

Sarcasm.

 

Some background information here:

 

There's a famous apologist, Gary Habermas, who argues that the majority of scholars accept the minimal facts of Jesus's resurrection, therefore we should accept the resurrection as a fact. (Apologist reasoning)

 

Which leads to the question why they don't accept Evolution on the same grounds? If Jesus's resurrection is to be concluded as "fact" because the majority of scholars agree to the minimal facts, wouldn't it follow that we all should accept Evolution as a fact because of the majority agreement in the scientific world? Of course it is absurd. That post was one of my tongue of the cheek posts for the day. When reason fails, use mockery...

[Antlerman]

Yes, as I have asserted...

 

We do not yet explicitly understand the mind, but this does not imply the mind will forever remain a mystery.

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun.

 

ten minutes later...

 

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind.

I would have written:

 

Shyone: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

Me: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun. Let's also consider other possibilities too.

 

ten minutes later...

 

Shyone: Well we didn't find any. There must only be a natural explanation of the mind.

 

 

 

[Shyone]

Yes, as I have asserted...

 

We do not yet explicitly understand the mind, but this does not imply the mind will forever remain a mystery.

 

Seeker: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

LNC: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun.

 

ten minutes later...

 

LNC: Well we didn't find one. There must not be a natural explanation of the mind.

I would have written:

 

Shyone: Hey man, let's look for a natural explanation of the mind.

Me: Okay sure, why not? Sounds fun. Let's also consider other possibilities too.

 

ten minutes later...

 

Shyone: Well we didn't find any. There must only be a natural explanation of the mind.

 

 

 

Actually, I'll own that. I accept the criticism. I don't consider "unnatural explanations" to be helpful and especially not "supernatural" explanations. "Supernatural explanation" is an oxymoron. It is no explanation at all.

 

A lightbulb in my room burned out. I think there is a natural explanation. LNC wants a supernatural explanation. Even though I don't know why the bulb burned out, I see no reason to look for some reified disembodied immaterial being to explain why the bulb burned out.

 

"There must be a natural explanation."

 

A fair assessment is that there are indeed "answers" and the evidence of a natural explanation to the mind doesn't always involve a reductionist approach. A destructionist approach works too. Examining people who have had destruction of parts of the brain shows what those parts do from memory to intent to personality, love and desire.

 

What is an "explanation" anyway. What is it that is being asked? "How do neurons make a brain?" Or "How does a brain think?" I would ask, "Why doesn't a brain with a bullet through it not think?" How much brain tissue can a person lack and still be the "same person?" Or even a person at all?

 

At what point in the development of a human does the body have the ability to think? One cell? Two cells? 8 cells? 1st or 2nd trimester? Newborn? Age of accountability?

 

What do other animals think? Which ones would we say "think" as opposed to "react." How much of what we think we think do we actually think, and how much of that is just reacting in pre-programmed ways?

 

During that 10 minutes, millions upon millions of details of evolution, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, comparative anatomy and physiology, and archeology (and more scientific fields than I have listed here) should be considered, and every one has something to say about the natural explanation of the mind. None has anything to say about anything other than a natural explanation of the mind.

 

So there's your answer. "There must only be a natural explanation of the mind."

 

[Antlerman]

Actually, I'll own that. I accept the criticism. I don't consider "unnatural explanations" to be helpful and especially not "supernatural" explanations. "Supernatural explanation" is an oxymoron. It is no explanation at all.

I actually agree with this. I don't consider what may be much more subtle and nuanced in existence beyond what our current tools of science are geared to examine would in fact be "supernatural", let alone "unnatural". I just think there is much more to life that any of us self-assuredly patting ourselves on that back and say, "it will look thus...", using our current paradigms of science, as grand and wonderful as they are, can open to us.

 

That is not 'supernatural'. My personal belief, faith if you wish, is that at some point, science and religion will in fact be saying the same things: but only when they are able to transcend this sort of exclusivity dichotomy rooted in language and faith systems that we currently are being confronted with, as in this thread...

 

A lightbulb in my room burned out. I think there is a natural explanation. LNC wants a supernatural explanation. Even though I don't know why the bulb burned out, I see no reason to look for some reified disembodied immaterial being to explain why the bulb burned out.

Well, that's the interesting question: I have yet to see a dialog about his position on the matter. That would be good form for a discussion from him, don't you think??

 

"There must be a natural explanation."

 

A fair assessment is that there are indeed "answers" and the evidence of a natural explanation to the mind doesn't always involve a reductionist approach. A destructionist approach works too. Examining people who have had destruction of parts of the brain shows what those parts do from memory to intent to personality, love and desire.

 

What is an "explanation" anyway. What is it that is being asked? "How do neurons make a brain?" Or "How does a brain think?" I would ask, "Why doesn't a brain with a bullet through it not think?" How much brain tissue can a person lack and still be the "same person?" Or even a person at all?

 

At what point in the development of a human does the body have the ability to think? One cell? Two cells? 8 cells? 1st or 2nd trimester? Newborn? Age of accountability?

 

What do other animals think? Which ones would we say "think" as opposed to "react." How much of what we think we think do we actually think, and how much of that is just reacting in pre-programmed ways?

This seems to have be our sticking point throughout this scab-picking of a thread, that I see your mindset as equating human-like cognitive processes as synonymous with consciousness. I hear that again, and again, and yet again in what you just said. I don't. Again, there are levels and degrees of consciousness. It is present in the worm, the plant, and well perhaps on the atomic level to one degree or another.

 

Just as the body is a higher, more complex, and greater depth of biological organization, so our minds, thoughts, emotions, and personalities, are not the definition of consciousness, but an expression on a greater degree of it. So put a bullet in part of the brain and totally f* up their thoughts and personality. It doesn't alter the fact of consciousness' present in nature, any more than infecting a body with a disease that disfigures an arm and makes it non-functional denies the basic functional 'design' of the body. Right?

 

During that 10 minutes, millions upon millions of details of evolution, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, comparative anatomy and physiology, and archeology (and more scientific fields than I have listed here) should be considered, and every one has something to say about the natural explanation of the mind. None has anything to say about anything other than a natural explanation of the mind.

 

So there's your answer. "There must only be a natural explanation of the mind."

 

And we now understand the full scope of the "natural" explanation? To assume so would seem a more religious faith, wouldn't it? I think the odds are in favor of reality being, well, vastly far beyond the scope of our imaginings, perhaps to the point of infinity.

 

That to me is more than a reasonable assumption to make. It seems to assume otherwise, almost screams of seeking a sense of security in the face of the Incomprehensible. In this regard, turning to science for assurance, is a religious leap, IMHO.

[Franko47]

The thing about human consciousness is that it provides more variables in a problem solving situation than what is exhibited by other life forms. Evolution can adapt a species over time to a environmental/survival challenge, whereas human consciousness can adapt in immediate time (often) to this. This is a tremendous evolutionary benefit. However, these survival methods must be transferred through a human tribe or culture as information, so that each new generation doesn't have to re-invent the wheel or the applications of fire.

 

I have no idea how that relates really to this conversation, just a generalization comment, I guess...

 

 

 

Antlerman said:

 

I think the odds are in favor of reality being, well, vastly far beyond the scope of our imaginings, perhaps to the point of infinity.

 

 

I've always believed this. For one thing, a specialized intelligence will make more use of reality in more ways more often making every aspect of reality relevant to someting.

 

We study dirt, grass, trees, wind, air, microbes, quantum physics, weather, medicine, and so on. There is nothing within our observable reality that we just shrug and ignore. Everything is scrutinized. On top of that we create "meta-realities" with art, music, architecture, poetry and *gasp* religions....so that we are in fact even going beyond natural reality (is there really such a thing, objectively???) to create our own extensions of reality, all of which of course, require consciousness, and a sentient self-aware one at that.

 

Many have remarked over several eras that there seems to be no evolutionary purpose for our ability to conceptualize art and other subjective pursuits; or that this ability is a side-effect of evolutionary adaptation, as though that somehow diminishes it's importance.

 

In nature, it is sometimes the most mundane and extraneous side effect that can be the key to a specie's ultimate survival and advancement. Subtlety is sometimes the master of what would seem to be a dominant characteristic of a thing or situation. To think that for centuries humans observed lightning, static electricity and magnetism as some kind of mundane and unimportant phenomenon; gosh, if they'd only known these potentials a thousand or two years ago.

 

Even the most redundant findings of science could become our salvation. Thus the broad and infinite nature of the universe we live in. I doubt that intellectually or scientifically we are even one percent into the full story of our situation, not really.

 

Infinite levels. Someday we will live forever. Because we can conceive of such an idea, and there is no "policeman's hand" at the top of the cosmos saying "No, you can't do that". Religion would like to believe that (a generalization) but I do not.

[Legion]

What is an "explanation" anyway?

I think this is a great question Shyone. I would only refine it slightly and ask, "What is a natural explanation?"

 

It so happens that I started a thread that has a bearing on this question. And this has me thinking.

 

How are we measuring the mind?

What kind of inferential systems can we use upon our measurements?

What kind of predictions would we like to be able to make about minds?

What sorts of analogies already exist for the mind?

What sorts of metaphors exist for the mind?

 

In all likelyhood I will seriously contemplate these things.

[Legion]

Antlerman I just wanted to reiterate that I don't believe that natural explanations imply reductionistic explanations. There are languages available to us that are richer than the languages that form the basis of reductionism. I am very interested in having natural explanations of the mind. In my opinion this is what science is about. We can probe our nature from within and gain great insight, but I think if we endeavor to understand another being's mind then their mind must somehow be made objective. Does that even make any sense?

[Antlerman]

We can probe our nature from within and gain great insight, but I think if we endeavor to understand another being's mind then their mind must somehow be made objective. Does that even make any sense?

But in order to evaluate the interior "objectively", you must remove it from its environment, flatten it, and then observe it. At best you have a description of a thing. If you extend this description to be defined as "REALITY", simply because it is a measure of exterior surfaces then you are reductionist. The interior has cannot be approached this way and expect it to say all there is to say about it. I take you back to this post from January:

 

 

More on this idea of the Interior. I'm going to quote again from Ken Wilber who I went into length in explaining the 'tenets' of emergence back on post 146, as I like how he explains this . From SES, p.p. 112-114. In following up talking about how the systems theorist would claim "that the resultant 'big picture' covers the whole of reality, from atoms to cells to animals, from stars to planets to Gaia, from villages to towns to planetary federations...", he adds:

 

And yet, and yet. Something is terribly wrong. Or rather, terribly partial. All of these diagrams represent things that can be seen with the physical sense or their extensions (microscopes, telescopes). They are all, all of them, how the universe looks from the

outside

. They are all the

outward forms

of evolution, and not one of them represents how evolution looks from the

inside

, how the individual holons feel and perceive and cognize the world at various stages.

 

For example, take the progression: irritability, sensation, perception, impulse, image, symbol, concept.... We might believe that cells show protoplasmic irritability, that plants show rudimentary sensation, that reptiles show perception, paleomammals show images, primates show symbols, and humans show concepts. That may be true (and is true, I think), but the point is that

none

of those appear on any of our diagrams. Our diagrams (thus far) show only the outward forms of evolution, and none of the corresponding “interior phehensions” of the forms themselves (sensation, feelings, ideas, etc.).

 

So the diagrams themselves are not wrong (once we have revised a few errors), but they are terribly partial. They leave out the insides of the universe.

 

And there is a reason for this. The general systems sciences seek to be empirical, or based on sensory evidence (or its extensions). And thus they are interested in how cells are taken up into complex organisms, and how organisms are part of ecological environments, and so on – all of which you can

see

, and thus all of which you can investigate empirically. And all of which is true enough.

 

But they are not interested in – because the empirical methods do not cover – how sensations are taken up into perceptions, and perceptions give way to impulses and emotions, and emotions break forth into images and images expand to symbols…. The empirical systems sciences cover all of the outward forms of all that, and cover it very well; they simply miss, and leave out entirely, the

inside

of all of that.

 

Take, for example, the mind and the brain. Whatever else we may decide about the brain and the mind, this much seems certain: the brain looks something like figure 3-6 (or some anatomically correct figure), but my mind does not look like figure 3-6. I know my mind from the inside, where it seems to be seething with sensations and feelings and images and ideas. It looks nothing like figure 3-6, which is simply how my brain looks.

 

In other words, my mind is known interiorly “by acquaintance,” but my brain is known exteriorly “by description” (William James, Bertrand Russell). This is why I can always to some degree see my own mind, but I can never see my own brain (without cutting open my skull and getting a mirror). I can know a dead person’s brain by simply cutting open the skull and looking at it – but then I am

not

knowing or sharing that person’s mind, am I? or how he felt and perceived and thought about the world.

 

The brain is the outside, the mind is the inside – and, as we will see,

a similar type of exterior/interior holds for every holon

in evolution. And the empirical systems sciences or ecological sciences, even though they claim to be holistic, in fact cover exactly and only one half of the Kosmos. And that is especially what is so partial about the web-of-life theories: they indeed see fields within fields, but they are really only surfaces within surfaces within yet still other surfaces – they see only the exterior half of reality.

 

 

 

Reductionism can be both explicit, and subtle.

[Shyone]

This seems to have be our sticking point throughout this scab-picking of a thread, that I see your mindset as equating human-like cognitive processes as synonymous with consciousness. I hear that again, and again, and yet again in what you just said. I don't. Again, there are levels and degrees of consciousness. It is present in the worm, the plant, and well perhaps on the atomic level to one degree or another.

 

<snip>

 

And we now understand the full scope of the "natural" explanation? To assume so would seem a more religious faith, wouldn't it? I think the odds are in favor of reality being, well, vastly far beyond the scope of our imaginings, perhaps to the point of infinity.

I agree that there are different "degrees of consciousness." That is exactly correct. And ours is more advanced, but not substantially different from the consciousness of "lower animals." They also have "cognitive processes" of their own proportional to their abilities which are in turn limited by their anatomy.

 

The full scope of the natural explanation is just the variety of life and consciousness. Form determines function.

 

I also view the "development" of conscious processes, from the ancient to the modern, or from the zygote to the adult, as evidence that consciousness is a purely natural process dependent upon the structures upon which it depends. A mature human brain has greater capacity for thoughts, memories and even emotions than an immature brain of either an undeveloped human or another species or even an ancient extinct species of hominid.

 

So what happened between the cell and the human to allow for consciousness? And what can turn a conscious person or animal into a vegetable?

 

The brain giveth and the brain taketh away.