Consciousness

[Kuroikaze]

Rather than just continue this pointless bickering, and telling each other what an idiot we think the other is (though it is somewhat emotionally appealing)

 

Let us bring this back to the central point, and my main answer to your question.

 

My answer comes in the form of a question, which I have put to you several times.

 

How does one tell the difference between the immaterial and the non-existent?

 

Propose a way of testing for the immaterial that is reliable, consistent, and independently verifiable, and, I, as well as many other skeptics will be skeptical on this issue no longer.

 

Can you answer this question?

 

You say I have already made up my mind and rejected the immaterial by fiat, I say I am more than willing to concede that ANYTHING exists once the evidence for it is there.

[Antlerman]

How does one tell the difference between the immaterial and the non-existent?

Is love material? Does it have physical properties? To point to all the material effects is not at all valid to say that those are love itself. They are manifestations of love.

 

Or if you wish, looking at it from a purely material point of view, love is an emergent, non-material reality rising out of the machine - but becoming its own thing, both affecting the material world and the material world interacting with it. In this sense it has become an objective reality, even though it is not something material.

 

But if we wish to say that love is made of matter because it requires our physical biology to create it, then we would need to keep going backward and say that our biology is not anything other than atoms, that "I" am not "I", but an illusion that is called "I" to define this specific collection of matter. But when was the last time we denied the legitimacy of "I", of our "being", our reality, because we can be reduced down to atoms?

 

We don't. That is not the reality of our experience, and why I feel that a philosophical reductionism is in fact not reflective of reality, is not consistent with our seemingly irrational nature in our interactions with these 'immaterial' realities everywhere around us.

 

Propose a way of testing for the immaterial that is reliable, consistent, and independently verifiable, and, I, as well as many other skeptics will be skeptical on this issue no longer.

The same way you measure things like gravity.

 

 

The problem with discussions like this is that it always comes back to the traditional Christian orthodox way of imagining the nature of spirit as separate from the world, that we are outside it, or it outside us. They imagine it 'in heaven', some supernatural reality and build their myth structures about it off that perspective. So that all arguments of reductionism against any said reality of the spiritual is geared towards disproving that notion, the dualistic, mythological idea.

 

But instead of looking at that aspect of the religious experience, the spiritual, and evolving it to deeper level, more consistent with our current level of knowledge, moving it above a defensive of a literal interpretation of the symbols of language used to express that immaterial reality, instead the cry 'no more myth!' takes the baby with that bathwater and ejects it in favor of replacing myth with only what can be "proven to exist", using the tools of science designed to measure the physical world.

 

There is great value in embracing what reason has shown us, but to me I come back to that "I" in there, that "soul", that immaterial 'being' inside the material machine.

[bornagainathiest]

Hello again LNC and Happy New Year!

 

I appreciate that you've been busy, but I was wondering if you'd be so kind as to reply to the questions I put to you on Oct 5, in the 'Kalam Cosmological Argument' thread? On Oct 20 I repeated that posting and added a few other points that seemed relevant. Now, I'm aware that it's been your habit to answer questions in their chronological order (meaning that Han, Agnosticator, Phanta, et al, should precede me), but could you overlook that rule on this occasion, please?

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[Kuroikaze]

We don't. That is not the reality of our experience, and why I feel that a philosophical reductionism is in fact not reflective of reality, is not consistent with our seemingly irrational nature in our interactions with these 'immaterial' realities everywhere around us.

 

Not to be short with you Antler as I do respect you, but....

 

YOU called me a reductionist, that is your word not mine. If others wish to rope me into the reductionist box because it makes me easier to dismiss then that is their choice and has nothing to do with me.

 

I have no problem with saying things like love or "the mind" are emergent properties, because emergent properties still emerge from matter, though are not exactly equal to matter.

 

LNC is not talking about emergent properties, and both of us know it, in fact people have discussed the concept of emergent properties with him and he has dismissed it.

 

He is arguing for something that exists completely SEPARATE from matter, not emergent FROM matter, and this is what my question referrers to.

I.E. A mind that is an emergent property to the brain no longer exists when the brain stops functioning, it does not go somewhere else as LNC believes.

 

I'd write more but I gotta get ready for work.

[Shyone]

How does one tell the difference between the immaterial and the non-existent?

Is love material? Does it have physical properties? To point to all the material effects is not at all valid to say that those are love itself. They are manifestations of love.

 

Or if you wish, looking at it from a purely material point of view, love is an emergent, non-material reality rising out of the machine - but becoming its own thing, both affecting the material world and the material world interacting with it. In this sense it has become an objective reality, even though it is not something material.

I wondered about this for a while when I saw the movie Contact, but after thinking for a short time it occurred to me that in every respect love is physical. It is as physical as appendicitis and seizures.

 

It requires a brain. A functioning brain. One capable of long term and short term memory. One with a functioning limbic system and hypothalamus. What we deem to be the effects of love are physiologic sequellae to mental cogitation - and we're back to consciousness, memory and the like. No brain, no thought, no love.

 

If you see the "concept" as "arising from the machine" but not part of the machine, then you have declared my computer to be sentient, or transcendental. Or something other than a machine. Conscious or not, existing within a subprogram of a subprogram of a subprogram, love is a function of the machine, not an independent entity.

 

Hate, anger, love, disgust, lust and hunger all depend on the brain. All have specific and definite evolutionary functions, and any brain without these abilities is less likely to facilitate the survival of the person.

 

We can "discuss" love as a separate concept, we can even reify it, but it remains first and foremost a function of the physical aparatus.

 

A heartbeat - one pump of blood - is a function of the heart. Calling the heartbeat an immaterial or non-material reality is semantics, not reality.

[Antlerman]

We don't. That is not the reality of our experience, and why I feel that a philosophical reductionism is in fact not reflective of reality, is not consistent with our seemingly irrational nature in our interactions with these 'immaterial' realities everywhere around us.

 

Not to be short with you Antler as I do respect you, but....

 

YOU called me a reductionist, that is your word not mine. If others wish to rope me into the reductionist box because it makes me easier to dismiss then that is their choice and has nothing to do with me.

Sorry about that. I wasn't exactly intending to direct it at you. I gathered you aren't. I just launched off after it in general, which is typical of me when I start down that path.

 

I have no problem with saying things like love or "the mind" are emergent properties, because emergent properties still emerge from matter, though are not exactly equal to matter.

Exactly. I grabbed the question of the "immaterial" to get us there. Once we are there, then it can lead to some of the more interesting considerations about the nature of 'spirit', if you will. Going there takes the whole mythologies coming from that place and puts them into a deeper light, one that I feel is compatible with higher reason.

 

LNC is not talking about emergent properties, and both of us know it, in fact people have discussed the concept of emergent properties with him and he has dismissed it.

I really didn't bother reading all his other stuff about trying to prove the myths of the Bible are factual history, and that whole approach to spirituality (which I never caught in there anyway - it was just religion without meaning). The whole premise is misguided from the outset, and all the arguments are just rationalizations, which early on were dismantled for what they were (the whole fallacy of "the majority of NT scholars" argument, etc). This topic was of interest to me, though I doubt LNC is willing to set aside all his approach to "God" through scientific reasoning to explore what is to me truly compelling. But as you said, I always sense a certain disingenuous about the questions.

 

He is arguing for something that exists completely SEPARATE from matter, not emergent FROM matter, and this is what my question referrers to.

I could take that premise of emergence and extend it beyond the material world, but that's way outside the scope of where LNC wants to lead us. I won't debate against some of the points he's raising, however where he want's to leap off too I find in its own right, entirely as reductionist as those he challenges, just on the opposite side of the coin.

[Saviourmachine]

Agnosticator was on the right track. The most valuable books/articles I read on the topic is by Itti and Koch. They just focus on the neural correlates of consciousness. We have implemented their saliency model on robots by the way. Saliency being bottom-up attention, and attention being quite related to a conscious-like kind of spot light on the stage of the brain. I enjoyed also the classic book by Edelman and Tononi. Moreover, if you have to be able to do a master thesis in the Netherlands I can offer you an internship that I defined around this topic, namely along the lines of Baars' global workspace theory. In which (neural) agents compete between each other and only one crosses the level of the subconscious-conscious. Franklin and Shanahan implemented models according to those lines. The former uses codelets (kind of mini-agents), a term you might know if you read Hofstadter (from the well-known book Gödel, Escher and Bach).

 

The questions:

1. How do you account for the existence of consciousness (if you accept the existence of such)?

2. How do you explain knowledge from a naturalist/physicalist perspective (knowledge being commonly described as justified true belief)?

3. How do you account for intentionality from a naturalist/physicalist perspective (intentionality being commonly described as the ofness or aboutness by which we interact with things in our world)?

4. Finally, do you believe that we direct apprehend or perceive objects in our world or do you believe that perception is mediated to us?

 

1. I don't care so much about philosophical discussions about the existence of conscious. For me it is quite obvious that I am aware of things. :-) I just want to make the robots that I built, aware of the same kind of things (their body, their environment, time, their own mind) as we are aware off;

2. The robots will acquire knowledge that is useful for them. It doesn't need to be necessarily elegant or true;

3. Intentionality involves choice, which at least involves disregarding the options that are not chosen, which involves prediction of the result of actions, which also involves preferences regarding those results. Even if preferences are pre-programmed, a robot is still able to become a better predictor of its actions, or to go for actions with more unpredictable results. In other words: by learning. Different robots can develop different personality styles with respect to making choices. What would you want additionally to that to call a robot intentional?;

4. The embodiment paradigm states that we learn objects by interacting with them, put them in our mouths, etc. To live is a life long learning process.

[agnosticator]

What we have to say in this forum is nothing more than speculation and opinion.

Yes, but it's quite fun isn't it?

 

Discussion with LNC? FUN?

HA! I really meant giving opinions and speculating.

 

See...you made me laugh!

 

 

I'm glad I could be the comic relief once in a while.

[agnosticator]

Yet, the questions that I have asked are mostly concerned with philosophical problems that categorically, I believe, cannot be answered by physical explanations.

 

LNC

 

If they can't be answered by "physical explanations", why haven't philosophers answered and proven them after all these centuries? Why haven't theists answered and proven them to everyone's satisfaction?

 

I think there is a biological basis of consciousness and hence a brain-based epistemology to go with it. We go to sleep and lose consciousness, yet regain it when we wake up. Neural behavior is responsible for this experience. "Consciousness requires the activity of specific neural substrates." (from A UNIVERSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS HOW MATTER BECOMES IMAGINATION by EDELMAN AND TONONI)

 

...conscious experience does not just float freely above an ocean of functionally insulated, unconscious processes. Instead, it is constantly influencing and being influenced by many unconscious processes. Indeed, there are thousands of examples in both perception and action, thought and emotion, that demonstrate that conscious and unconscious processes are regularly in touch and that their separation is often far from clear-cut."

 

How can consciousness be separated from unconsciousness? How can philosophy or religion answer and prove this?

[agnosticator]

Agnosticator was on the right track. The most valuable books/articles I read on the topic is by Itti and Koch. They just focus on the neural correlates of consciousness. We have implemented their saliency model on robots by the way. Saliency being bottom-up attention, and attention being quite related to a conscious-like kind of spot light on the stage of the brain. I enjoyed also the classic book by Edelman and Tononi.

 

Thanks for the support, Saviormachine. My reading on the subject is limited, so thanks also for the book references. Very interesting research you are doing with robots. Cool...

[Kuroikaze]

 

 

Sorry about that. I wasn't exactly intending to direct it at you. I gathered you aren't. I just launched off after it in general, which is typical of me when I start down that path.

 

 

No problem, sorry I misread you.

[LNC]

If that's the case, then's he's using the wrong philosopher. Chalmers is a property dualist from what I understand. He sees consciousness as a product of the brain but non-reduceable to the brain alone. The other player in consciousness is something that is a fundamental law of nature. It's the interaction between the two.

 

Indeed, the overall structure of this position is entirely naturalistic, allowing that ultimately the universe comes down to a network of basic entities obeying simple laws and allowing that there may ultimately be a theory of consciousness cast in terms of such laws. If the position is to have a name, a good choice might be naturalistic dualism.

 

...

 

If the causal patterns of neural organization were duplicated in silicon, for example, with a silicon chip for every neuron and the same patterns of interaction, then the same experiences would arise. According to this principle, what matters for the emergence of experience is not the specific physical makeup of a system, but the abstract pattern of causal interaction between its components. This principle is controversial, of course. Some (e.g. Searle 1980) have thought that consciousness is tied to a specific biology, so that a silicon isomorph of a human need not be conscious. I believe that the principle can be given significant support by the analysis of thought-experiments, however.

Chalmers

 

I'm not sure that you have read Chalmers correctly as I don't know that he ever says that he is a property dualist, or comes to a solid conclusion as to where he stands on the issue of consciousness. He holds a few possibilities as tenable explanations, including type-D dualism, type-E dualism, and type-F monism.

 

Also, he divides the consciousness problem into two categories, the "easy problem" and the "hard problem." The easy problem includes:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
  
• the integration of information by a cognitive system;
  
• the reportability of mental states;
  
• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
  
• the focus of attention;
  
• the deliberate control of behavior;
  
• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.
  

 

These, he says, are explainable by functionalism. The hard problem encompasses the problem of experience or what Nagel described as what it is like to be a bat for example. This problem is not explainable via functional explanations. Chalmers says, "the hard problem is hard precisely because it is not a problem about the performance of functions...What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions...When it comes to the hard problem, the standard approach has nothing to say." Chalmers does put forth a theory, although he calls it a speculative theory as there is still much unknown about the hard problem of consciousness.

 

LNC

[LNC]

If a phenomenon is not yet explained down to the last detail, obviously it's a case of "God did it."

 

I'm just glad that rational minds have ultimately prevailed throughout history. Otherwise we'd have stopped looking for answers and still believe the spring wouldn't come after winter unless we offered a sacrifice and that epileptics are demon possessed.

 

The obstinate ignorance and arrogance wears thin after a few thousand years. We must build understanding on facts and evidence, not wishful thinking. All progress is the direct result of this process. Assigning a supernatural cause to natural processes not yet fully understood is counterproductive.

 

That is one of the problems that we are trying to address here, is rational thought possible given naturalism? If you believe so, then I would like for you to address the questions in the OP from a position of naturalism.

 

LNC

[LNC]

Discussion with LNC? FUN?

 

Come on, you enjoy it. Admit it

 

LNC

[LNC]

Clearly, physical differences do "mediate" differences in perception. Deafness, blindness, neuropathy, and even color blindness are examples of physically mediated differences in perception. By verbal communication and testing, we can at least determine if we have the same abilities to differentiate things - colors, scents, tastes, etc. Given that some can differentiate these things, and the mechanisms for all of these are species general, we can reasonably extrapolate that the perceptions are the same for all humans with some differences that are frequently based on physical differences (genetics, disease, etc.).

 

In the same sense, we can test chimps to see if chimps have similar ability to discriminate between colors, shapes, scents, and so forth. Again, they are limited by the same shortcomings as humans, and their abilities are similar to humans.

 

A philosopher that, in the absense of data, can "think" his or her way into different qualia does not command my respect. I'd rather trust something that is testable, verifiable and falsifiable.

 

This is not the way that philosophers discuss mediation of perception. Hume, Kant and others believed that all humans have mediation that occurs between the thing perceived and the perceiver such that one never perceives a thing in itself. So, even testing would be mediated and never reliable in that case. Even guys like Tye, Dretske and Lycan who say that we can perceive directly end up with mediation and concepts that are themselves derived - so, in the end, even they cannot avoid mediation. The question for you is, can you explain how a naturalist could perceive a thing in itself? I haven't seen a naturalist who has overcome this problem. If you have an explanation or know of a naturalist philosopher who does, let me know who and how it is overcome.

 

The material connection is one that we can examine repeatedly with the same results. We have no examples of intelligence in the absense of any matter or energy (a pure vacuum). That is the evidence. Matter? Intelligence. No matter? No intelligence. Every single time.

 

The extraordinary claim of intelligence without matter would require more than assertion to be accepted. Subjective impressions that "seem" intelligent are not evidence. If you saw a dust devil, you might think it acts with intention or intelligence, but your personal impressions do not translate to testable intelligence.

 

To me, the universe is filled with matter and energy with intersting properties, but I would expect you to tell me what seems intelligent about something spread out so far that it takes billions of years for even light to reach parts of it.

 

What would a stupid universe look like?

First, just because we may not perceive intelligence apart from matter (a claim that I don't think is true), doesn't mean that it does not exist. We live in a material universe that is past finite and is embedded with intelligence from the beginning, it is rational to believe that that intelligence came from someone or something outside of our universe (all matter space and time), therefore, we likely do have an example of intelligence from a non-material source. So, your claim, is mistaken in more than one way.

 

LNC

[LNC]

(QUAIL-yuh or QUAL-yuh singular: quale, QUAL-ee or -ay). Often referred to a “raw feels”, qualia are those subjective, qualitative properties of mental states such as sensations and emotions—the “what it is like” to see red, feel pain, be angry. ...

 

You know, the Christian should argue that "qualia" are the same for everyone (which makes sense to me since we are based on the same physiology). If not, then the bible is worthless as a guide.

 

That wouldn't even make sense from a materialist perspective since we all have different experiences, therefore our qualia is not going to be exactly the same from person to person. However, the question, or as Chalmers calls it, the hard problem is to explain this given naturalism, which hasn't been done thus far.

 

Many of the seven deadly sins are qualia:

 

lustful appetite (Gluttony, Fornication, and Avarice)

irascibility (Anger)

intellect (Vainglory, Sorrow, Pride, and Discouragement)

 

If we cannot equate one person's lust with another's, then the whole concept of a sinful qualia falls to pieces. If one adopts the viewpoint that everyone's experiences are different, then even love and hate or pleasure and pain are potentially different. How can I be sure you feel pain when I stick you?

 

No, you cannot equate one person's lust with another as each has their own unique experiences of it. Now, does this mean that they don't experience lust? No, they experience lust, but each has their own experience of it, not another person's experience of it. I cannot experience your experiences, nor can you experience mine, yet we can both have generally common experiences. That is a problem for naturalism.

 

Did Jesus feel pain? Not being human, it's even less likely that he felt pain as we do. I think he said to one of the thieves next to him, "Man this is a kick!" Or maybe not. Maybe he just thought it. I can't remember.

 

Who says that Jesus was not human? That would be a heretical view of who Jesus was and is. Jesus was human and did experience pain as we do.

 

If we all experience different "qualia" then we are bordering on solipsism - not in terms of existence, but quality of existence. Perhaps everyone else is an automaton, or robot, with no emotions, pain etc. Maybe everyone else just fakes it in some vast cosmic conspiracy to make me think I'm not the only one that exists.

 

We all experience our own experiences but we can have generally common experiences. The problem is that your statements can be confusing analogically. When you say that a person experiences different qualia, that can be taken in two different ways. First, as I said earlier, you don't have my experiences since they are mine, and I don't experience yours since they are yours - therefore, in that way they are different (call this "type 1"). Second, we experience the same qualia, e.g. anger, lust, happiness, etc. as a kind or type, so in that way we experience the same qualia (call this "type 2"). So, given the first explanation we can experience different qualia and not end up with solipsism. Given explanation two, we can experience the same qualia (type 2) without experiencing the same qualia (type 1) and not end in solipsism. So, it is important to be precise with you language to avoid mistaken conclusions. Nevertheless, solipsism is not a problem given my view; however, that is not necessarily the case given naturalism since I see no way that naturalism cannot justify type 2, which is one of my opening questions.

 

So, if the Christian thinks his love is different, or his "gut" is a better judge of reality, then s/he is arguing that there is no basis for telling people not to experience certain qualia that are sinful.

 

I think there is good reason to say that our qualia are identical - within some parameters of physical differences.

 

I wonder if serial killers experience empathy, and is there a physical basis for their behavior.

 

When the hypothalamus, the temporal lobe, and/or the limbic brain show damage, it may account for uncontrollable aggression.

Qualia would be based upon concepts given naturalism and those concepts would be derived from other concepts (unique by individual) and therefore, given naturalism, qualia would always have to be unique to each individual, if it exists at all, which some argue it does not.

 

I am not saying that the physical cannot impact qualia, quite the contrary, I think it does; however, Like Nagel and others, I just don't know of a good explanation for qualia that can be reduced to the physical alone. If you have such an explanation I would like to consider it.

 

LNC

[LNC]

This is not an exploration of a 'possible answer' as you put it, but YOUR answer. Your belief, and your justifications for it using all your resources as best you can muster to vindicate your investments in time, energy, and dollars to create an edifice to support your structures of security.

 

In many regards, I appreciate what you are trying to do. But the reasons for it are weak, not strong. Again... the reasons for it... not all the rationalities. You have a good mind, no doubt, and you hold my respects for that. But you expend your energies on trying to make something beyond rationality, appear comprehensible rationally. You don't seem to understand the very nature of what you wish to support. It's looking for Gold in a copper mine.

 

Let's see if you can process that...

I haven't given an answer here. I am still pursuing possible explanations and am open to those being proffered if they make sense and explain the phenomena sufficiently. As I said, I believe that I am open to one additional possible explanation that many here are not. However, I haven't given an answer, so your assessment is not accurate.

 

Regarding your response, however, I do see many here that would fit your description of trying to protect the edifice of naturalism and excluding any answer that falls outside of that domain. What do you have to say about them?

 

I don't see that I am at all going out side of rationality and in fact, I am trying to find out if rationality is justifiable given naturalism. If not, then if naturalism is true, we should all give up on rational pursuits as we are just fooling ourselves. I think it is irrational to pursue rationalism if it is not grounded and based upon good evidence and reason (which itself would have to be justified). It is not enough to say that we seem to be rational, therefore, we are. It is important to know that we are on solid footing to justify our rationalism, which is one of the reasons for this thread. I am open to any and all possible explanations, however, I will challenge them where they seem "irrational" in accounting for the data and phenomenal experiences. The people on this site claim to be rational and claim the rational high ground, I am just trying to find out whether there is a solid foundation for those claims or whether they are foundations of sand. The same goes for my claims and my foundations - they should and are being put to the test on this site and we will see if mine are solid to sandy as well. I hope you will bear with me and join with me in that pursuit.

 

LNC

[LNC]

LNC, I learned lots of 10-dollar words in university philosophy classes too, and I'm familiar with Kant and Hume et al but I really don't give a shit about which philosopher I should follow.

 

You seem determined to fit me and my opinions in a box, so you can quantify them and label me. Fine, have your fun, I figured a conversation with you would be a waste of time and I was right. All you want to do is pick away at technicalities and label things and endlessly set the terms of engagement and force people to be on the defensive. I don't have time or energy for this ridiculous navel-gazing. Good day.

You espouse ideas that are either supported or contradicted by thinkers of the past. We all have them and we should be willing to test them as none of our ideas are new. If we can't learn from good thinkers of the past we are bound to make the same mistakes that have already been made. Sorry, I am not trying to fit you into a box, just to show you that others have had the ideas that you do now and to show you how they have faired.

 

I came here looking to test ideas and, yes, to pick apart those that have weaknesses. If that bothers you, then it sounds like you need a thread that will be more supportive of your currently held beliefs.

 

LNC

[LNC]

Ha, I am probably better at my day job than you are too. Lets see you repair a computer.

 

You very well may be. I have done some repairs on my computer and others, but it is not my profession, so you have me there.

 

Elements are the basic building blocks of chemistry, there are no elements that are not found in nature. Of course you could be misusing the term "element" here, but that just makes you look stupid. Say what you mean, if you want to be understood. I think you mean compounds, not elements, and these compounds do occur in nature.

 

You are right that I should have used the term compounds rather than elements and I gave a quote to show that they are not likely naturally occurring.

 

You are the one changing my argument, I do not discount the "possibility" of an immaterial mind, I just see no EVIDENCE for one. I have said that as Clearly as I can dozens of times.

 

your statement

 

For someone who engages in numerous ad hominems ever post, you sure whine like a stuck pig when anyone else does it.

 

 

Your quote so I do not get in wrong

I am confused about your post above. Are you claiming that the sentence after "your statement" represents something that I wrote? If so, you are misrepresenting me as I never made such a statement. If not, then you need to show examples of where I used ad hominem (and you claim in every (I assume that is what you meant to write) post.) Now, if you are claiming that this is my quote above, please point me to the post from which you drew this as I found no such statement and don't make such statements. Please clear this up.

 

This statement most emphatically ASSUMES the existence of an immaterial mind. If no immaterial mind exists then this is not the example you claim it is, therefor you statement is circular. Not my fault you do not proof your own statements.

 

Why do you believe it ASSUMES the existence of an immaterial mind, it simply asks a simple question of which body, a live one or a dead one, has a mind? It is not an argument either, it is a question, therefore, it is not circular. Maybe you need to read the actual statement, rather than interpreting it and then claiming that I said what you interpreted. However, with that said, you still didn't answer the question as to which body has a mind (if either)?

 

The only one living in ignorance is you. I am more than willing to believe in ANYTHING, even immaterial minds, or god, if they can be demonstrated to exist. I'll ask once more the question have been evading. How do you propose we tell the difference between immaterial minds and things that do not exist.

Another ad hominem in place of an answer. You have not answered my questions and yet you go on to ask me a question. Maybe you could give me the answers to the questions that I asked. Has everything that you believe been directly demonstrated to you experimentally, or do you take the word of those who have done the experiments directly? In answer to your question, it is simple, we have evidence of those things that exist. However, my purpose here is not to argue for immaterial minds, but to see if there is any way of explaining consciousness via naturalism. So, if you could refer back to the questions in the OP and address those, we could move forward.

 

Feel superior? I AM Superior to you, Objectively superior. Does this statement make me a bit of jerk, perhaps, but I am not claiming to be humble.

 

Why? Because I do not appeal to that that "unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith," for my beliefs." To quote Robert Ingersoll.

OK, well if you are superior as you claim, then you can explain how you get to consciousness from naturalism. Also, explain how you get to any objectivity (as you claim to be "objectively superior") given naturalism. That should be too hard for you, should it?

 

No gap filling here, I never said "evolution did it" or any derivation of it. I do think evolution explains much. The fact that it occurs is obvious, the theory attempts to explain how and is yet incomplete. I believe in CAN find many more answers, and perhaps the answer to the question conciseness because it has answered so many other questions, faith is not needed.

 

Kierkegaard was a Christian, and considered to be the founder of existentialism by most philosophers. Some people, who have not read his works closely, claim Nietzsche was a post modernist, but he was not. He believed in a sort of truth or otherwise he could not have believed so strongly that Christianity was false. Post modernist philosophers hold that all religions are true because truth is a matter of personal perception, Nietzsche clearly did not think this, as he describes in great detail why he thinks that the christian religion is false, he claims it portrayed a weak morality that valued the underpowered and weak instead of the strong.

 

That being said, I think he did get several things wrong, but I am not going to get into that here.

 

You answer both ways. You didn't say evolution did it, but then that evolution has answered many question and therefore it may answer the consciousness question along with this closer "faith is not needed." I'm sorry, but if you believe that everything will be ultimately answered with a physical explanation, that is faith.

 

No, Nietzsche was not a post-modernist he was an existentialist, but his existentialist ideas served as the foundation for later postmodernism. Existentialists are not completely tied to the idea of objective truth, neither have they completely abandoned the idea. They have split the world into two domains, the phenomenal and the noumenal. They still hold that objective truth exists in the phenomenal world, but not in the noumenal. Postmodernists simply took the next step of abandoning objective truth in the phenomenal world. Yes, Nietzsche was all about the will to power, which meant that anything human that was contrary to that idea (nihilism was another big target of his as would many today who have a "whatever" mentality). He opposed Christianity for the very reasons that many atheists today deny exist within Christianity - humility. I think that Nietzsche had a more honest assessment of Christianity than do many of today's New Atheists who his ideas spawned. In many ways, I think Nietzsche would not be pleased with the new atheist movement.

 

I did in fact in my first post, point out that This is STILL a TAG argument even though you do not mention god. In fact my point was that you were being duplicitous by not mentioning god, and hoping that we would not notice that asking the question "where does conciseness come from" is a trade mark beginning to TAG.

 

Yeah I wouldn't apologize, because I only do so where there is evidence I am wrong. The evidence says you are a apologist, and therefore willing to lie for your religion, as most apologists will stoop to any low in discussions for their goal.

 

I actually have not made an argument, per se. I have been asking questions. Now, if you see those questions as being the foundation of an argument, the easiest thing to do is to show that they can be answered from a naturalist perspective. They only serve as a basis of an argument if they cannot be answered given naturalism. But, I am only looking for the answers to these questions rather than to make an argument. So, you are still mistaken about your TAG assertion. How is it duplicitous to not mention God when I am simply asking questions? You are reading way too much into this discussion. I guess that there could be nothing to get you to apologize since you already have your mind made up that you are right, no matter what. Believe what you will, then.

 

Everyone rationalizes to some extent.

 

Tests are not traps because there are answers to the questions, you posit the question in such a way so that the only answer you will accept as "rational" is to agree with your theistic conclusions. I.E. you do not think methodological naturalism is good, therefore your response to any answers given is that "it is not good enough" or "does not answer the question" This is what I meant by your questions being silly, not that the question of conscience in general is silly, but that the questions you have created are stilted towards your conclusions already.

 

Any answer that is not "gee you are right I cannot account for the mind via naturalism so therefore there must be something transcendent, that trancendent thing is a god and now I am a christian" is going t be rejected by you because you are not here to hear our answers, but to tell us how wrong and lost we are. This is what I mean by your being dishonest.

 

Can you honestly conceive of another answer which you would find satisfying? That would make you walk away saying "gee those atheists know their stuff?" If you are honest I think you will admit to yourself that I am right. Though I doubt you will admit it to me.

 

How do you know what I will or won't accept. First, I haven't seen an answer yet that will address all the aspects of consciousness. You think it is only theists who have these questions and you are mistaken. People like Chalmers, Nagel and other non-theists and atheists also have these questions. Listen, if you have answers, like I said, you wouldn't be so suspicious but would simply provide them. I am not critiquing the ideas here based upon my thinking, but am bringing the ideas of other philosophers and what they have said and are saying. So, if you have a problem with that, it is not we me necessarily, but with the many people whom I am quoting and to whom I am referring.

 

I never said that methodological naturalism is not good and I have no problem with it overall. It is when philosophical naturalism is conflated with methodological naturalism that I think mistakes are made and possible explanations are unjustly eliminated. I don't answer with "it's not good enough" or "does not answer the question" but I show why the answers are either invalid or lack explanatory power. That is the way to conduct an good conversation of issues.

 

I will accept an answer that has explanatory power and scope to address what Chalmers calls the hard question of consciousness. I see no reason to blithely accept an answer that does not, do you? Would you? If so, why?

 

LNC

[agnosticator]

Discussion with LNC? FUN?

 

Come on, you enjoy it. Admit it

 

LNC

 

I only admit to my sarcastic remark. Ha!

[Antlerman]

This is not an exploration of a 'possible answer' as you put it, but YOUR answer. Your belief, and your justifications for it using all your resources as best you can muster to vindicate your investments in time, energy, and dollars to create an edifice to support your structures of security.

 

In many regards, I appreciate what you are trying to do. But the reasons for it are weak, not strong. Again... the reasons for it... not all the rationalities. You have a good mind, no doubt, and you hold my respects for that. But you expend your energies on trying to make something beyond rationality, appear comprehensible rationally. You don't seem to understand the very nature of what you wish to support. It's looking for Gold in a copper mine.

 

Let's see if you can process that...

I haven't given an answer here. I am still pursuing possible explanations and am open to those being proffered if they make sense and explain the phenomena sufficiently. As I said, I believe that I am open to one additional possible explanation that many here are not. However, I haven't given an answer, so your assessment is not accurate.

I find it hard to believe that you are searching for understandings for yourself here, though I may be wrong. If I felt that way, if we all felt that, then it would be interesting to see the shift in discourse that would occur. The impression is you have the answers in your mind, and you're trying to prove others wrong and yourself right.

 

Of course I believe what I believe, but I am not married to a set of beliefs and doctrines as part of that belief. As as Christian, in order to be considered "saved", you have to adhere to orthodoxy. That places you on the side of defender, not seeker. It comes with the territory unfortunately. One huge reason why I left it behind. I had to.

 

Regarding your response, however, I do see many here that would fit your description of trying to protect the edifice of naturalism and excluding any answer that falls outside of that domain. What do you have to say about them?

I'll put it this way, I see leaving behind that system as a process of change. Not just changing your beliefs, but your whole approach to them. Changing beliefs is relatively easy. Changing how you think about things altogether is a considerably longer, more challenging process. Not everyone, but understandably some approach science and reason now in the same way they approached the Bible as authoritivative and the Rock of Truth. Again, to be clear, I'm not saying anyone in particular, but to be sure that does happen, and understandably so. It is something I personally still struggle with.

 

I'll never forget my Bible College buddy who also left Christianity saying some years ago now to me, "I'm so glad I know the truth now". I joked with him, "Haha, I remember you saying that exact same thing when we were little upstart apologists in Bible School [jab-jab]". His response was most telling to me. He said, "Yes, but the difference is now I really DO have the truth!"

 

You see?

 

So I hear you taking that same approach to your beliefs. Authoritative. Period. It's not about what we can learn from other points of view. It's about being Right! For your benefit, I will quote from that Christian professor of comparative religion here in my home state who says it best for how I see your 'faith', as it were:

 

"One of the ironies of biblical literalism is that it shares so largely in the reductionist and literalist spirit of the age. It is not nearly as conservative as it supposes. It is

modernistic

, and it sells its symbolic birthright for a mess of tangible pottage. Biblical materials and affirmations -- in this case the symbolism of Creator and creation – are treated as though of the same order and the same literary genre as scientific and historical writing. “I believe in God the Father Almighty” becomes a chronological issue, and “Maker of heaven and earth” a technological problem."

 

(from here)

 

Boy I would love it if that registered with you.

 

I don't see that I am at all going outside of rationality and in fact, I am trying to find out if rationality is justifiable given naturalism. If not, then if naturalism is true, we should all give up on rational pursuits as we are just fooling ourselves.

Or it could be true in part, but not an absolute. I love what a philosopher I enjoy says about that:

"It is necessary, therefore, that advancing Knowledge should base herself on a clear, pure and disciplined intellect. It is necessary, too, that she should correct her errors sometimes by a return to the restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness – to its heights we can always search– when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. “Earth is His footing,” says the Upanishad whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe. And it is certainly the fact the wider we extend and the surer we make our knowledge of the physical world, the wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge, even for the highest, even for the Brahmavidya.

 

In emerging, therefore, out of the materialistic period of human Knowledge we must be careful that we do not rashly condemn what we are leaving or throw away even one tittle of its gains, before we can summon perceptions and powers that are well grasped and secure, to occupy their place. Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that Atheism had done for the Divine and admire the services that Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of knowledge.

In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal.

Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.

 

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 12,13"

 

I too see your views as truth in disguise. The error is in concluding the answer.

 

The people on this site claim to be rational and claim the rational high ground, I am just trying to find out whether there is a solid foundation for those claims or whether they are foundations of sand. The same goes for my claims and my foundations - they should and are being put to the test on this site and we will see if mine are solid to sandy as well.

Well, it's been my contention based on what I see in your apologetics that your faith is built on shifting sand. Not that you aren't trying to make it air-tight rationally, but its the fact that you are.

 

I think it's valid to challenge notions that claim to be Fact with a capitial F, when in fact they are not nearly so religiously absolute as we may want them to be. The same thing is being done in your direction as well in showing how fallacious it is to rely on your reading of a holy text as the Rock of Truth. It is after all, not a direct interface with reality. It's your brain, reading the text, trying to understand it in the light you have - which is limited - extremely limited.

 

How you can call that your Rock of truth, is itself perhaps the greatest fallacy of them all. That is not the Rock of a faith. That you seem focused to make it that, makes me perceive that your faith is in fact built on shifting sand; in the very way you perceive others in doing so.

 

I hope you will bear with me and join with me in that pursuit.

Certainly. It would be my greatest hope that through that process you in fact walk away with something more than you brought in. Something from others in their understandings. This is all our path.

[agnosticator]

I am trying to find out if rationality is justifiable given naturalism. If not, then if naturalism is true, we should all give up on rational pursuits as we are just fooling ourselves.

 

I think you (LNC) may be referring to this article's line of thinking:

 

Rationality--How did rationality arrive in the world? Irrationally, as might be expected: by a chance accident. If we want to know what that chance accident was we shall have to guess it, as one guesses the answer to a riddle,--Friedrich Nietzsche.[4]

 

2. Humanity's rational and observational faculties have emerged only on the basis of natural selection. That is, species endure and evolve according to their biological fitness.

 

3. We have no certainty that this natural, nonrational process should evolve capacities to know truth. Natural selection pertains to the utility of survival traits, not knowledge of reality.

 

4. Therefore, if naturalism is true, we have no basis to trust our reasoning or observations as veridical (truth-ensuring). Our beliefs might be veridical (that is, by a cosmic fluke whereby nonrational forces create an entity that can accurately reflect reality) but we would have no reason to hold these beliefs. So if the materialist theory is true, we would have no reason to believe it to be true.[7]

 

5. Therefore, we must either:

 

(a)deny our intuition that some truth can be known and become epistemological Nihilists or

 

( embrace a world view that makes truth possible [i.e. Christianity ].

 

 

IOW, naturalism cannot explain consciousness. Isn't this an argument from ignorance? Sure, a first person perspective of the mind is not explained presently (by naturalists AND theists), but how could it be uncaused? Genetic predispositions of behavior and personality, brain injury studies, and brain imaging that shows distinctive neural regions that are active simultaneously with corresponding mental states or processes, are causal evidence. Brain activity and mental states or processes are inseparable.

 

Other animals must be special in god's sight too, because they have minds that are to some extent, rational. It seems the evidence shows that electrochemical activity and patterns of synchronous neural firing produce brain states. There is evidence that the universe produced life, so why not rationality?

[Shyone]

 

This is not the way that philosophers discuss mediation of perception.

 

That's because they don't know anything about facts and reality. They attempt to separate the brain and sensory organs from perception, but then they are just wandering off into incomprehensibility.

 

 

First, just because we may not perceive intelligence apart from matter (a claim that I don't think is true), doesn't mean that it does not exist. We live in a material universe that is past finite and is embedded with intelligence from the beginning, it is rational to believe that that intelligence came from someone or something outside of our universe (all matter space and time), therefore, we likely do have an example of intelligence from a non-material source. So, your claim, is mistaken in more than one way.

LNC

 

Detecting intelligence in the universe is not possible because 1) as we understand it, it does not exist in the universe, and 2) the mechanism for such intelligence remains undefined - just as God is undefined.

 

Saying that "since we are intelligent it is necessary that intelligence greater than ours exists in the universe" is wishful thinking. Our abilities and properties are clearly the result of our physical existence and can easily be seen as an adaptive mechanism for survival. The smart early people ran from the predators and the stupid ones just stood there. Smart prevails.

 

There is no basis for saying that there is a greater anything existing anywhere until it can be demonstrated to be possible. Possible. Give us a way that intelligence can exist. What would it look like? What would it do? What has it done?

 

I'm not speaking of things that have already been explained by science or the subjective experiences of a few. "Patterns emerging" from strictly physical processes do not warrant the addition of anything intelligent.

 

Everything that happens in the universe has a physical basis, and any claim for something intelligent existing independent of matter has no basis.

 

If intelligent life exists elsewhere, it has a physical basis and is derived from some kind of simpler unintelligent matter. We have only our example, but that is better than you have offered by way of explication.

[Kuroikaze]

Why do you believe it ASSUMES the existence of an immaterial mind, it simply asks a simple question of which body, a live one or a dead one, has a mind? It is not an argument either, it is a question, therefore, it is not circular. Maybe you need to read the actual statement, rather than interpreting it and then claiming that I said what you interpreted. However, with that said, you still didn't answer the question as to which body has a mind (if either)?

 

Your quote for the second time, with emphasis added:

 

Now, if you pose it this way and say that there are two bodies, one alive and one dead and ask me which has an immaterial mind, then I can answer that - and I believe you could as well.

 

There you go being duplicitous, You did not say mind, you said "immaterial mind" If you said which being had a mind I would say the live one obviously because the dead one clearly has no mind.

 

It is the word Immaterial that makes your claim circular, and oddly enough that word is suspiciously missing from your last post. Why oh why would you leave that word out I wonder?

 

Now ask me why I think you are being dishonest?

Though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, perhaps you just forgot what you said.

 

 

 

 

OK, well if you are superior as you claim, then you can explain how you get to consciousness from naturalism. Also, explain how you get to any objectivity (as you claim to be "objectively superior") given naturalism. That should be too hard for you, should it?

 

Apparently the emoticon did not make my attempt at being sarcastic and snarky clear enough......

 

I will accept an answer that has explanatory power and scope to address what Chalmers calls the hard question of consciousness. I see no reason to blithely accept an answer that does not, do you? Would you? If so, why?

 

 

I thought I already explained this, lets try again from the top.

 

The reasons I find this exact question useless and silly is precisely because I do not think it is POSSIBLE to achieve a good answer by your or Chalmers standard.

 

You seem to want a valid deductive syllogism to prove this, and I do not have one, indeed I would argue that one does not exist, not because we have not found one but because it is logically impossible

 

whether theist or atheist, naturalist or dualist, it seems to me that ANY attempt to explain consciousness is necessarily circular, since it must assume that consciousness is something real.

 

Some theists try to escape this conundrum by claiming they are justified in believing in a mind because god created the mind, but this is still circular, because one must trust their senses to believe they have knowledge from god.

 

This is why I find the argument silly and useless. People have been debating the nature of the mind since Socrates (that we know of). With all of our advancements in knowledge we are no closer to firm answer because a firm answer is logically impossible.

 

Instead people rehash the same arguments and ideas we have been throwing around for 3000 years.

In the end we must all assume, without being able to deductively demonstrate, things like consciousness or the reliability of the senses. If we did not we could not function reasonably.

 

However, I have never met an argument on this issue that was not circular at some level, and I see no reason to think it is even possible to make one.

[agnosticator]

Some theists try to escape this conundrum by claiming they are justified in believing in a mind because god created the mind, but this is still circular, because one must trust their senses to believe they have knowledge from god.

 

This is why I find the argument silly and useless. People have been debating the nature of the mind since Socrates (that we know of). With all of our advancements in knowledge we are no closer to firm answer because a firm answer is logically impossible.

 

Instead people rehash the same arguments and ideas we have been throwing around for 3000 years.

In the end we must all assume, without being able to deductively demonstrate, things like consciousness or the reliability of the senses. If we did not we could not function reasonably.

 

My knowledge of philosophy is limited, but from all that I have been reading about consciousness (philosophically) it has been as you point out. No argument I've read has provided answers that are conclusive. We have no choice but to trust our senses without losing our minds (pun intended).