Is Consciousness Just the Result of Electrical Activity in Our Brains?

[Canute]

Jeebus

Sorry to do this to you but I also want to disagree with what you wrote. Much of it seemed to me well reasoned, but there were one or two serious flaws.

Eh. I do not believe there can be any absolute proof, as each person's experiences are subjective. The fact that you are aware of your own existence is enough proof for you to logically state "I exist". However, that is not proof that others that you interact with exist, or that the world with which you interact is real.

I'm afraid you'll find that your first sentence is the opposite of the truth. Philosophers have always concluded that absolute proof is precisely equivalent to subjective experience.

What JuJu said was that he knew, he did not say that he could demonstrate a proof. This is an important difference. By 'prove' we normally mean something like - demonstrate to be consistent with the axioms of some formal axiomatic system or other. But proving something to ourselves involves a quite different process. (That 'prove' has these two different meanings causes a lot of trouble in philosophical discussions).

It is perfectly easy to know things that we cannot demonstrate in this way. We do it in every moment of every day. You yourself do it in every moment of every day, and sometimes at night. You know that something exists, as you yourself say, even though you cannot prove this to me. And I know that you cannot prove it to me. I know this even though I cannot prove that I know you know it but cannot prove it to me, and so on into absurdity.

Knowing is not 'being able to demonstrate a proof', it is exactly the opposite. Equivalently, 'knowing is not being able to demonstrate a proof'.

Now, you might argue that this one piece of certain knowledge you have(that something exists) is an aberration, a single exception to a rule, but this again is the opposite of the truth. If you delve into the mathematics of the incompleteness theorem, into epistemology, metaphysics, formal logic, and other academic piqeon-holes, (and I don't mean after years of study, just after a bit of root around these things), you quickly see that what we know to be the case but cannot demonstrate to be true is the only form of knowledge that we can ever have, the only type of knowledge we can know. In a strong sense it is the only kind of 'knowledge' that there is.

(By 'know' here I mean as in having a certain knowledge that something is the case, in the strict philosophical sense of 'certain'. In linguistic form it might be the statement "I CANNOT POSSIBLY BE WRONG!" in relation to some assertion or other).

We can all make this statement in relation to the assertion "Something exists". We all seem to agree on this. But we cannot say that we cannot possibly be wrong when we are discussing the theory-laden evidence of our physical senses, nor when discussing the outcome of a demonstration within some formal system of symbols or other that some statement or other is true or false. Kurt Goedel proved this. All we are doing is showing that the statement (theorem, proposition or whatever) is consistent with our axioms. By definition our axioms are assumptions.

Now obviously all this places a limit on what can be known. JuJu's assertion came in under this limit. He said that he knows what he knows in just the same way that he knows that something exists. He knows by just, well, knowing, being aware of it, being conscious that it is the case, knowing because his own conscious experience proves that it is the case.

If we knew how people performed this feat of knowing then perhaps we might find away of testing whether people know things or not. However as yet there is no scientific or western philosophical explanation for how we know things, we just do. Direct experience can bring certain knowledge. That's it. That's all there is to say. Why? How? Unless you know then it just depends on whose explanation you want to believe.

But only direct experience can do this, bring certain knowledge, things that can be known. All philosophers and mathematicians agree on this. It may be the biggest and deepest scientific/philisophical mystery that there is, with the possible exception of why anything exists.

Your assertion that JuJU couldn't know what he knows, on the other hand, is very different to his. You cannot possibly know whether your assertion is true. How, after all, can you know that it is impossible for him to know from direct experience what he knows, when what we learn from our direct experience is known to be the only thing we can ever know?

By the way, nothing I say here is at all contentious in philosophical or mathematical circles, (not as far as I know). It's all fairly easy to prove, and often has been. (Not easy for me, I hasten to add, I can't do all that formal stuff, but easy for any decent mathematician or philosopher, someone like whoever Hypnogogue is).

We've known about all this since the early Greeks philosophers wrote about it. Aristotle put it "Certain knowledge is identical with its object", meaning that to know one must become.

In more Kantian terminology we might say that all that we can ever know is the noumenal, since we cannot ever know anything for certain of the phenomenal. The only noumenal thing of which we are capable of knowing anything at all is what we are, or can become.

I'm can't be sure that I agree with JuJu about reality, reality as JuJu says he knows it is. But I don't know that he doesn't know it. However my guess is that he does. While I can't be certain about it, or ever sure that I'm interpreting his words in the right way, it seems to me that he knows something rather like what I know, and others here, even if we may differ about some of the details.

It's not often I agree with Bertrand Russell on most things, although I'd give a lot to be able to write like him, but I agree completely with him on one issue.

"There is one great question," he writes in 1911. "Can human beings know anything, and if so, what and how? This question is really the most essentially philosophical of all questions."

From Buddhism comes this little gem.

Knowing Fish

One day Chuang Tzu and a friend were walking by a river. "Look
at the fish swimming about," said Chuang Tzu, "They are really
enjoying themselves."

"You are not a fish," replied the friend, "So you can't truly know
that they are enjoying themselves."

"You are not me," said Chuang Tzu. "So how do you know that I
do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?"

From 'Zen Stories To Tell Your Neighbors'

The point is, we cannot absolutely prove the reality of our own experiences.

After the above I hope you can see that the reality of our experiences is the only thing we can ever know. For each of us nothing else exists except our own experiences. The reality of our experiences is the only thing that we can absolutely know, prove to ourselves, despite the fact that we cannot demonstrate a proof of their reality to anyone else.

Not to ourselves, because we are by nature subjective, and therefore prejudiced towards our own viewpoint; nor to others because the experience itself is subjective, and further we have no absolute proof of the existence of anyone else. For more on this theme, read "The Mysterious Stranger" by Mark Twain.

I agree, and I agree also that it's a relevant issue. In philosophy what you say here is equivalent to the assertion that solipsism is unfasifiable, a well established fact. And, as you say, we are prejudiced towards our own viewpoint. But then according to philosophers ours may be the only viewpoint that exists.

A good example of subjective experience is color. How do we know that what we have been told is "red" and what we see is the same as the "red" that others see? They may choose the same crayon from the box, but only because that is what their experience has taught them to do. But is it truly "red" in an absolute sense? Do I know that the other person is not seeing what I perceive to be green? They could be daltonic, who knows. We cannot prove the reality of our experience of "red". That's that.

I'd go along with that also. Equivalently, experiences are incommensurable. Again this is an established fact. We can only know what we experience, and when we know it we can really know it, whatever 'it' happens to be. But we cannot communicte our experiences to someone else, they have to had first-hand.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that you cannot know things. Yes, nothing can be proved. But this is one meaning of prove, there is another, and knowing is not the same thing as proving. Not only can you know things, and do you know things all the time, but in a sense you could say that it's the only thing that you can do, the only thing that your consciousness does, just know all the time what state it is in, and what other states it can be in.

I hope that mostly made sense. What it all means is that the original question ('What is Consciousness') has to be answered in the first-person. It can only mean 'What is My Consciousness', for I (or you) can never know that any other consciousness exists, and mine (or yours) is certainly the only one you or I can study.

All the best
Canute

 

[magus niche]

g'day, I enter this obviously unsolvable void yet again because i feel there is an inherent ignorance of the fact that we 'human' observers keep using our language which we invented to state 'facts' about some external reality.

truth is not even experiential (although experience is as close as one can get), as our experience is influenced by external factors throughout our life. in this way to say one 'is' who one 'is' is questionable to say the least.

surely we must keep language concerning so universal a concept as mind/consciousness/matter/being etc. as simple as possible. everyone has their own subjective understanding of text, but slightly less abstract terminology is surely beneficial in conveying a message to others :-)

Consciousness seems to be linked to the energetic interactions between infinitely small entities within our body. It seems to have the paradoxical ability to affect and be affected by these entities and in fact entities outside the body also. I know dualisms and reductions are not fashionable at the moment, but the taoist metaphor of yin/yang is an excellent one for helping to articulate such a fundamental problem in philosophy.

opposites are often misunderstood as separate and distant theoretical entities. the idea of consciousness/physicality is a perfect example. people keep seperating everything into distinct systems. at this point in my life the ideal of 'all is one' seems much more sensible. the yin/yang concept is useless if one thinks of one of the sides as being more important or 'causal' and the other as simply an inferior 'reaction'.

oh yes, any respectable 'theory of everything' or anything of this sort surely should be all inclusive including the antithesis of the theory itself. ie every theory is both true and false depending on the context... but this is common knowledge, no?

 

[Canute]

g'day, I enter this obviously unsolvable void yet again

It's not obviously unsolvable to everyone. Perhaps you can explain why you feel it is.

truth is not even experiential

Are you not certain, on experiential grounds, that it is true that something exists?

surely we must keep language concerning so universal a concept as mind/consciousness/matter/being etc. as simple as possible. everyone has their own subjective understanding of text, but slightly less abstract terminology is surely beneficial in conveying a message to others :-)

Terminology is inevitably abstract, it's the only sort of terminology there is. If you mean we should keep it simple I agree. The problem is that the topic is not simple, and if you put things simply often people mistake that for naivity.

Consciousness seems to be linked to the energetic interactions between infinitely small entities within our body.

What makes you say that?

I know dualisms and reductions are not fashionable at the moment, but the taoist metaphor of yin/yang is an excellent one for helping to articulate such a fundamental problem in philosophy.

I agree, but note that the Yin/Yang symbol does not denote dualism. It very specifically denotes non-dualism.

opposites are often misunderstood as separate and distant theoretical entities. the idea of consciousness/physicality is a perfect example. people keep seperating everything into distinct systems. at this point in my life the ideal of 'all is one' seems much more sensible.

A fair point. But 'all is one' is dualism according to those who designed the Ying/Yang symbol. It just raises the old intractable philosophical problem of the one and the many.

oh yes, any respectable 'theory of everything' or anything of this sort surely should be all inclusive including the antithesis of the theory itself. ie every theory is both true and false depending on the context... but this is common knowledge, no?

Absolutely. Theories are not knowledge, since their truth or falsity is relative. One cannot know anything about consciousness by theorising about it, a problem well illustrated by any brief perusal of the literature on it. Although that's not to say theorising can't help.

 

[magus niche]

good points canute,

It's not obviously unsolvable to everyone. Perhaps you can explain why you feel it is.

yes, i was a little abrupt. what i mean is that i believe the time has come for humans to stop thinking they can 'solve' such abstract problems that, let's face it, we invented with our own imaginations. don't get me wrong, i am a problem solver just like the rest, but an awareness of the importance of the problems we invest large quantities of energy into, is surely beneficial.

the idea of consciousness is certainly* worthy of exploration though, and i suppose i was a little arrogant in suggesting the inquiry was a void... bad day

Are you not certain, on experiential grounds, that it is true that something exists?

*hmm certainty, truth, knowledge. all these words to describe some objective reality that is absolute. my opinion is that if there is such a reality (ie body/mind of god) it would be both expressable and it would also be inexpressable. say truth was absolutely non absolute. because if we start becoming obsessed with ideas, like you found in my argument, one contradicts ones self without even being aware of it.

nothing exists, as does everything.

so to 'transcend' contradiction and paradox one could incorperate these concepts into their philosophy. i think this is where the yin/yang stuff comes into it. yes i was not clear in suggesting Tao as dualistic, as it is more/less than that.

as far as pinpointing consciousness goes, i do not think it can be purely experiential, as the word itself implies something that is not conscious. now, how can one know that something else is not conscious without being it? i mean, dreams, altered states etc. are all forms of the same thing, as is being unconscious: there is still energy being communicated throughout a body, with/without one being aware. so awareness/memory is not a prerequisite, or is it?

hmm... is a rock conscious? i would argue yes, if consciousness is non-heirarchic. ie. to be conscious does one have to be a certain 'level' or 'quality' to be counted? so the rock has a level of consciousness that is completely different to our own. rock is often uniform in its inner construction, so maybe the rocks consciousness would be somewhat limited and uniform also...

any body of matter is a process in itself, and has an abundance of influences acting apon it, both internally and externally. i would say infinite influences infact. i think humans are a complex crystallisation of matter. ie. instead of being a rock subject to heating/pressure/water etc. that in time forms a purified crystal, we have become extremely complex but fundamentally the same: evolution over time via energy causes some form of purification/crystallisation. by pure crystal i simply mean concentrated energy in a certain direction.

it seems as though our direction is slightly self destructive at the moment though, would you not agree?

Absolutely. Theories are not knowledge, since their truth or falsity is relative. One cannot know anything about consciousness by theorising about it, a problem well illustrated by any brief perusal of the literature on it. Although that's not to say theorising can't help.

Knowledge is questionable in itself though. it is another paradox. to know something one must believe it, and demonstrate it, and then others must be able to demonstrate it to believe it, and know it. but one cannot be sure that what one is interpreting as the truth is the 'actual' truth as in 'as god intended'. this is very theoretical territory.

as far as i can tell most 'truths' in our society are discreet masks veiling our desire to use/exploit certain aspects of reality. this seems to be common among life forms with higher/broader levels of consciousness. i know this sounds dismal and uncomfortable, but it needs to be said. when i speak of truth i generally acknowledge that it is simply 'human objectivity' or human truth, not universal truth. comments?

catchya

 

[magus niche]

Body:soul:spirit
Ice:water:vapour
Matter:energy:consciousness
Earth:water/fire:air
Pastfuture
None Is Better, None Is Worse
None Are Easy To Put In Verse

 

[freep2]

have you studied kabbalah?

It is good to learn acadaemia. Your consciousness is what pushes you learn, the
desire to KNOW. You must get into Spirit as this is the
Age of Aquarius. Hebrew is oldest recorded written human language going back
around 6000 years. Is anyone aware of any older written human language? The
Recent translation into English of the Kabbalah has many of the mysteries contained therin. The Kabbalah were the hidden teachings that only recently have become more widely available.
If you doubt consciousness, spirituality, or the Fact that a Being known as God actually created this vast expanse we inhabit, including the stars you see at night, then check out kabbalah for the DEFINITIVE answer.
There are many other places to learn to access your spirituality. Simply, ask Google for info. I hope
this helps some of you. Peace, Light & Extreme Joy!

 

[selfAdjoint]

. Hebrew is oldest recorded written human language going back
around 6000 years. Is anyone aware of any older written human language?

The 6000 year age of Hebrew is unsupported; the oldest surviving document in Hebrew is from -700 (I use a year system in which 1 BCE is labelled 0 and years before it with negative numbers and years after with positive).

Old Babylonian, aka Akkadian, is a Semitic language that goes back past -2000; so does Ancient Egyptian. The Oracle Bones from China are dated to the -2000's, and Sumerian, a non-semitic language, is older than all of them. Even in the Bible, "Sumer of Akkad" was a going concerned when Abraham migrated.

 

[Fliption]

There are many other places to learn to access your spirituality. Simply, ask Google for info.

If I ask google, I can pretty much find whatever I want to hear. I'd rather just make it up myself.

 

[Canute]

yes, i was a little abrupt. what i mean is that i believe the time has come for humans to stop thinking they can 'solve' such abstract problems that, let's face it, we invented with our own imaginations.

I don't agree but it's a reasonable point. The only problem is that we didn't invent our own imaginations, we invented science as a means of explaining them, by which means they turn our to be inexplicable. As you suggest, we may be wasting our time.

if we start becoming obsessed with ideas, like you found in my argument, one contradicts ones self without even being aware of it.

Couldn't agree more. I'd say that Goedel proved it.

so to 'transcend' contradiction and paradox one could incorperate these concepts into their philosophy.

For reasons to do with formal logic to transcend paradox it is necessary to transcend philosophy, which is basically mathematics.

as far as pinpointing consciousness goes, i do not think it can be purely experiential,

Maybe. But at present it is widely defined as 'what it is like'.

any body of matter is a process in itself, and has an abundance of influences acting apon it, both internally and externally. i would say infinite influences infact. i think humans are a complex crystallisation of matter. ie. instead of being a rock subject to heating/pressure/water etc. that in time forms a purified crystal, we have become extremely complex but fundamentally the same: evolution over time via energy causes some form of purification/crystallisation. by pure crystal i simply mean concentrated energy in a certain direction.

Makes some sense to me. I wonder, could consciousness be defined as 'the ability to do work'? That would be an interesting one to discuss.

it seems as though our direction is slightly self destructive at the moment though, would you not agree?

Yes. There seems little doubt that we are consciousness, but it's a lot less clear that we are intelligent.

Knowledge is questionable in itself though.

This is wrong. Knowledge is defined in philosophy as unquestionable.

to know something one must believe it, and demonstrate it, and then others must be able to demonstrate it to believe it, and know it.

I won't get into it but this is a serious misunderstanding. Aristotle is good on this one.

as far as i can tell most 'truths' in our society are discreet masks veiling our desire to use/exploit certain aspects of reality.

Completely agree.

Mostly what you say stands up imho, for what that's worth, but the relationship between knowledge, proof, truth and belief is not quite the way you say it is. However it's a big topic well covered in the lit. so I won't argue the point.

Regards
Canute

 

[nasrin]

“The Soul” you are talking about does not exist, consciousness / awareness “is” the chemical reaction going on / in your biological brain hardware. Actually it’s very simple to test, just give yourself some SSRIs; citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine and or sertraline and see how your soul reacts. LOL! But I do believe the energy (biological energy, energy found in cells) is not just simple energy this energy actually has memory. As for multiple existences, to me they are more like “memories carryovers” …
only occur in very rear instances, else we will all be copies of mommy and daddy, remembering all what they did and saw up till conception and then a branch off from that.

“The Soul” you are talking about does not exist,

what do you mean by DOES NOT EXIST?
is it as such that whatever you don't see and whatever doesn't respond to you in your own ways, and whatever doesn't show up as you wish it to show up to you... does not EXIST?

i am lost about these type of comments of you people.

just a question, i have headache now i feel the pain very much but i don't see it. does it mean that the pain thingy doesn't exist or so?
in the same way, i do feel soul, GOD within me very much, its power and so on but i don't see them though, does that mean those don't exist?

please explain. i am not genious here at all. just looking around to know.

thanks.

 

[Rileywwwnewpath4com]

Consciousness and realization of Self apparently occurs after elapsing of time during which a baby has experiences and begins to draw his or her own conclusions. Drawing conclusions spurs speech formation to express thoughts such as: "Damn. This floor is hard." Once the dialogue begins the baby has to justify the dialogue by inventing a person it's talking to, in this case talking to theirself. Once the Self is acknowledged there's where you achieve consciousness. Sort of forming a mirror image of yourself to talk to, discuss things with. Otherwise we would just be another animal.

 

[gather]

Consciousness is...

• A Real Force in Nature
• Measurable
• Demonstrable
• To be expected in Humanity's Future
• A Force meant for us to be used to increase human understanding and brotherly love

Ken

http://project-global-consciousness.org/

 

[nameta9]

The only way to understand consciousness will be to directly and physically modify the neural circuits of our minds and see what happens. There is nothing metaphysical about the mind it is just a complex circuit with feedbacks and resonances etc. By modifying the circuits and the mind organization research will discover when and how awareness appears. We may even manipulate and change our mind organization and sense perceptions and memory systems and this may generate new minds and new peceptions and eventaully completely new realities and universes.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The only way to understand consciousness will be to directly and physically modify the neural circuits of our minds and see what happens. There is nothing metaphysical about the mind it is just a complex circuit with feedbacks and resonances etc. By modifying the circuits and the mind organization research will discover when and how awareness appears. We may even manipulate and change our mind organization and sense perceptions and memory systems and this may generate new minds and new peceptions and eventaully completely new realities and universes.

This reseach has already begun. By puttiing a weak DC voltage across the brain, they get various phenomena, including feelings of inspiration and improved short term memory.

 

[nameta9]

The study of consciousness has the same problems of quantum mechanics. The observation interacts with what is being observed (heisenburg principle) creating a false observation or a limited observation in terms of accuracy. So a conscious mind studies its own consciousness or another mind but all the while USING its own consciousness therefore creating a distorted or subjective or false observation. Consciousness probably cannot understand itself without being outside itself or being something else. This is a HARD problem.

 

[StatusX]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it logically necessary that the phenomenal has no explanatory role? That is, even if the material world isn't causally closed, any extra mechanisms proposed to fill in the gaps will only need to perform functional roles. Even if "qualions" are proposed because explanatory holes are found in current physics, and even if these are thought of as the carriers of experience, isn't it logically possible they could exist without experience, while still maintaining their functional role? If so, experience remains either non-existent or an epiphenomenon. Is there any way out of this?

Because if not, it is very unsettling. When I look at blue, and in doing so contemplate the hard problem of consciousness, it certainly seems to be the phenomenal that effects my behavior. And yet, a reductive explanation of the brain could conceivably explain even why we have a word "phenomenal." This seems to be more than counter-intuitive, it is a full blown paradox. Whatever final theory of conscousness we come up with, the same theory would be found in a zombie world. How could such a theory be said to explain anything?

 

[Canute]

There are quite a few unsubstantiated claims being made here. There is no evidence that we have to learn to talk before we can be conscious of self, and that only then can we be conscious. This is what Dennet argues and its not hard to show that the idea is incoherent. Even if one thinks that it is not incoherent it is not difficult to show that there's no evidence to support the idea. To say that without internal dialogue we would by just another animal means little, since as far as we can tell we are just another animal. Nor can we say that consciousness is measurable. Clearly it is not.

To say that there is nothing metaphysical about consciousness, that it's just a complex brain process, is an opinion. At this time all the indications are that consciousness is metaphysical (beyond physics) since as yet it cannot be detected by physicists. Surprisingly, given the confidence of many scientists on this issue, it will never be detected by physicists, or anyone else come to that (except for their own), a limit to the scientific study of consciousness known as the other minds problem.

It is true that when we use apperception (minds perception of itself) we can be confused in various ways about what we are perceiving. However we cannot be mistaken about what we are experiencing. Rather, this is the only thing in our world that we cannot be mistaken about.

Not trying to be pedantic, but on this topic it's easy to make accidental assumptions and so set off in the wrong direction.

 

[selfAdjoint]

its not hard to show that the idea is incoherent. Even if one thinks that it is not incoherent ...

Well if it's not hard to show, we don't care what anyone who thinks otherwise claims, do we.

 

[Canute]

I suppose you could take that attitude. Seems a bit unhelpful though.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. You said Dennet's view was easy to show incoherent. If that was literally true how could any rational person disagree? And who cares what an irrational person thinks?

 

[StatusX]

There are three ways I could see the problem of consciousness being "solved":

1. It is shown that there is no consciousness. I can't imagine how this could be, but I know there are people today who believe it. If they could somehow build their case, this could gain wide acceptance.

2. Mysterianism, the belief that consciousness is simply beyond our abilities to comprehend. This is very possible, as both other views have their serious problems, and there are definitely other questions we aren't capable of answering. But obviously, this is a last resort.

3. Now, if there is consciousness, there is only one way I can see to solve the various problems. However, it is deeply unsatisfying, at least to me.

If we could somehow show that it is the intrinsicness of the physical (eg., what an electron really is) that causes consciousness, we might be able to show that consciousness is logically necessary, and then we wouldn't have to worry about being zombies in denial. Because for any proposed new intrinsic properties, the further question of why they exist on top of their functional role needs explanation. But it is reasonable to assume intrinsic physical properties are necessary, since there has to be something for the physical laws to work on.

Here's what's so unsatisfying. We believe we are conscious. There is some circuit in our brain responsible for this. But if the physical world is causally closed under today's laws, consiousness couldn't have contributed to that circuit, neither during our lives nor over the course of evolution. "Coincidences" like this must be explained. The only potential explanation I can see at present is that the physical world isn't causally closed, and extra particles are needed to fill in the gaps. Some of these particles cause us to talk about experiences, and it is their intrinsic nature that we experience. But all indications are that this will not turn out to be the case.

Does anyone have any other ideas or corrections?

 

[Canute]

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. You said Dennet's view was easy to show incoherent. If that was literally true how could any rational person disagree? And who cares what an irrational person thinks?

Yes, you're right. I see what you mean now. My post was out of order. Mostly I just meant to say that there was no evidence to support what was being claimed, but on the language/consciousness thing I was glib and dogmatic. My apologies.

To unpick this a bit. The poster I was contradicting stated confidently that language gives rise to consciousness. To say that it gives rise to 'self' must to some extent be true, but the idea that language gives rise to consciousness is like saying that dynamite is caused by explosions. I suppose in a way it is, since if it didn't explode it wouldn't have been invented, but it's a difficult argument to defend, and it certainly can't be just stated.

The trouble is also that I get very annoyed with Dennett. He seems determined to ignore common sense in favour of whatever view he happens to favour. I consider him to be irrational, but I do care what he thinks because people read him and take him seriously, outside the professsion at least. Gregg Rosenberg in another thread says that Dennett's views challenge his intellectual integrity. I tend to be less polite, because Dennett himself is insulting and desperately patronising to those who won't roll over and accept his arguments.

I said his arguments can be refuted, so I'll have a go. Here he is on language. (All this is from 'Consciousness Explained'). I'm not having a go at anyone here, just with DD.

"In other words, I am proposing that there was a time in the evolution of language when vocalisations served the function of eliciting and sharing useful information, but one must not assume that a co-operative spirit of mutual aid would have survival value, or would be a stable system if it emerged. Instead, we must assume that the costs and benefits of participating in such a practice were somewhat "visible" to these creatures, and enough of them saw the benefits to themselves as outweighing the costs so that communicative habits became established in the community." (195)

This is surely incoherent. It says that consciousness is causal, that being conscious impacts on our evolution as a species, and that the doctrine of causal completeness, on which physics is more or less predicated, is false. This from a physicalist.

Or does he mean that that vocalisation only gives the vocaliser the illusion that what it vocalises is understandable in a way that brings perceived benefits to its illusory concept of self, a self which it is deluded into believing it has by having an illusory conscious experience of understanding the meaning of what it is experiencing itself saying. Perhaps that’s it. It's nonsense. How can the benefits of vocalisation be 'somewhat visible' to creatures that are not conscious? How could they see the benefits to 'themselves' before selves existed?

Why is "visible" in inverted commas here? And what does ‘somewhat’ mean? Dennett’s use of language is worth paying very careful attention to as one reads him. He is ever so careful not to be too clear. One supposes that putting these words in inverted commas means that these are not words he wanted to use, since what they mean, shorn of their inverted commas, is that these creatures were consciously aware of the costs and benefits to themselves of communicating. If they do not mean this then it’s hard to see what they do mean. Yet somehow the inverted commas give them an ambiguity that at first glance avoids self-contradiction. It’s clever stuff.

The fact is that if these creatures were robot-replicators (as he suggests) then clearly the benefits of communicating would never be ‘somewhat visible’ to themselves. The idea is ridiculous. We can define robot-replicators as entities which have no selves to which anything at all would ever be somewhat visible, creatures which would never have any clue as to what might be of use to them or what would not.

But with self-assured self-contradiction this passage asserts that these creatures were not robots at all, but were in fact conscious beings, for otherwise they would have no ‘self’ to which communicating could have been known to be beneficial, no way of knowing that it was beneficial, and in fact no way of knowing anything at all. So, and despite all Dennett’s talk in his robot-replicator book on evolution (‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’, another gem), it turns out that consciousness must after all have played a part in our evolution, and that consciousness is causal.

He could have said ‘understood to be beneficial’, but this would be to give the game away. "Somewhat visible" is much more safely ambiguous.

Also, and although I’m no expert on neo-Darwinist theory, this passage seems to me to contradict that theory completely. For a start it implies teleology. It suggests that these creatures began to communicate on purpose, by intention, for the sake of the benefits that were somewhat visible to their ‘selves’. It suggests that the evolution of language was the result of teleological processes. As the language pathways in the brain which develop during the lifetime of these creatures cannot be passed on genetically without invoking Lamarck one wonders how they developed. As he states that these poor creatures could not think anything that they could not say, then one supposes they just sat around waiting for new words to biologically mutate so that they could start thinking them. He goes on;

"Then one fine day (in the rational reconstruction) (sic!), one of these hominids "mistakenly" asked for help when there was no helpful audience within earshot – except itself! When it heard its own request, the stimulation provoked just the sort of other-helping utterance production that the request from another would have caused. And to the creature’s delight, it found that it had just provoked itself into answering its own question." (195)

If I wrote this here in this forum everyone would fall about laughing. Perhaps then they would hear themselves laughing and realize that by they had provoked themselves by inadvertent auto-stimulation into finding something funny, and had thus invented humour. And what does "mistakenly" in quote marks mean? Does it mean mistakenly or not-mistakenly?

We can note that these hominids are capable of feeling delight, and were aware of themselves talking, so again consciousness is asserted to be causal, since this delight and awareness is assumed to lead to the repetition of the behaviour. We may also note that no explanation is provided of how they became capable of feeling delight or became aware.

It is very unclear what he means here by "rational reconstruction." He doesn’t define what he means by ‘rational’ at any point in his book. I suspect that most people define it differently. All this is to support his claim that:

"the practice of asking oneself questions could arise as a natural side effect of asking questions of others, and its utility would be similar."

Dennett’s thesis here is that talking comes before thinking. Sooner or later we quite accidentally say something, and then eventually, by a series of genetic mutations in our brains, evolve to be capable of thinking about what we are saying. Eventually the virtue of talking sotto voce to oneself is "recognised", and an internal dialogue begins, thus creating the illusion of consciousness.

Quite how these poor creatures ever became aware that they were talking, or became aware of what they were talking about, is not explained. Nor is it explained how or why a creature who is not aware of its own existence would care whether or not it was talking, nor whether talking is somewhat visibly useful to itself or not. It’s a muddle.

At some point these dumb creatures learn to think with their mouth closed. Or as he puts it, in the usual opaque language designed to disguise the naivety of the ideas -

"This innovation would have the further benefit, opportunistically endorsed, of achieving a certain privacy for the practice of cognitive autostimulation."

I really don’t know why anyone takes him seriously. Apparently the evolution of self-conscious thinking started with shouting loudly for help (accidentally and unknowingly) then by shouting more quietly, and eventually by learning to cognitively autostimulate in silence.

Of course if he is right then it follows that these creatures could not think anything that they could not say. As he puts it:

"If there were only fifty things one hominid could "say" to another, there would only be fifty things he could say to himself."

Note that "say" is placed in quote marks. And I wonder. Perhaps if we are not able to think things through internally before we have "said" them to other people this would explain much of what he says in his book. I remember one famous politician who, when asked what he thought about some issue or other answered, "how can I know what I think until I’ve spoken about it".

What he says is that these creature could know things, could feel delight, could be aware of what was useful and beneficial to themselves, and had self-awareness. They had language and they had a social structure built on communicating with each other. One wonders why he says this in such a complicated way.

"Once our brains (sic) have built the entrance and exit pathways for the vehicles of language, they swiftly become parasitized (and I mean that literally, as we shall see) by entities that have evolved to thrive in just such a niche: memes." (p200)

So, once we can talk we can start thinking about what we are going to say. Once we have done this then we can start having ideas, perhaps even ideas about what we are going to say. Apparently the pathways for the vehicles of language become parasitized by memes, which by definition can exist only in consciousness, thus causing the consciousness in which they exist, which by definition consists of memes. No wonder he states that:

"I don’t view it as ominous that my theory seems at first to be strongly at odds with common wisdom."

I presume by 'common wisdom' he means common sense. I'm afraid I find it extremely ominous that it contradicts this. It seems unsurprising that his book has had no impact in the profession beyond generating objections.

All this, and my general annoyance with Dennett, was what was behind my much too quick response to the suggestion made above that language caused consciousnesss. Maybe I've been unfair on Dennett, or missed his point somewhere, but I cannot see how his position can be defended.

Of course there are issues here worth discussing, and of course I might be wrong in various ways, but it cannot just be stated that without language we would not be conscious. There's no evidence for it, no rational argument for it (yet), and much evidence that's against it (studies with feral children for instance).

But you were quite right to be critical, I should have made a case and not just pontificated.

 

[Canute]

If we could somehow show that it is the intrinsicness of the physical (eg., what an electron really is) that causes consciousness, we might be able to show that consciousness is logically necessary,

This makes sense imo, and a number of papers have been published proposing this view, known generally as 'microphenomenalism'. But there's two sides to microphenomenalism, one in which electrons are an intrinsic property of consciousness and one in which consciousness is an intrinsic property of electrons.

Here's what's so unsatisfying. We believe we are conscious. There is some circuit in our brain responsible for this.

This may or may not be true given the current scientific evidence.

 

[StatusX]

This may or may not be true given the current scientific evidence.

Are you suggesting the current physical world isn't causally closed? This is possible, but as I've said, even if extra mechanisms are required to fill in the gaps, they only need to perform extrinsic roles. The only place an intrinsic property is required is at the very bottom, so that the rules have something to work on.

But the problem remains: it seems obvious that our phenomenal judgements are caused by the intrinsic conscious experiences. And yet, intrinsic properties are, at most, necessary side effects; they can do no casual work. It appears that the reason we believe in consciousness must be independent of it's existence. Is there even a vague idea how this paradox could be resolved?

 

[Rader]

If subjective phenomenal experience was intrinsic properties of consciousness and not electrons, it would seem to give a reasonable explanation why we do not have subjective experience of electrons but of consciousness of an arrangement of them.

If this was the other way around wouldn’t we be have to be conscious of all the electrons in our head or bodies for that matter?

 

[Canute]

Are you suggesting the current physical world isn't causally closed? This is possible, but as I've said, even if extra mechanisms are required to fill in the gaps, they only need to perform extrinsic roles. The only place an intrinsic property is required is at the very bottom, so that the rules have something to work on.

Yes, this is why I often bring up the 'problem of attributes'. At the bottom of everything, or at the heart of everything, there must be something intrinsic, otherwise there would be nothing that had properties or attributes which acted according to rules. The rules are not really rules, as in the rules of chess, they are how things behave. Unless there is something intrinsic there is nothing there to do the behaving. This relates to Rosenberg's argument about 'bare differences'. There must be something more than bare differences that exists, that is intrinsic rather than extrinsic. But this is not a distant problem about cosmogenesis, whatever is intrinsic is intrinsic to eveything, and is intrinsic right now. It is what matter is made out of. Whether this intrinsic 'substance' is causal or not is moot. I suspect that there's two ways of looking at it.

But the problem remains: it seems obvious that our phenomenal judgements are caused by the intrinsic conscious experiences. And yet, intrinsic properties are, at most, necessary side effects; they can do no casual work. It appears that the reason we believe in consciousness must be independent of it's existence. Is there even a vague idea how this paradox could be resolved?

I can't quite see what you're saying here. Science generally argues that our intrinsic conscious experiences are non causal, i.e. we would act the same whether we had those experiences or not. What do you mean by our belief in C being independent of its existence? Sounds like an interesting thought, but don't we believe in consciousness just because we're conscious?

 

[StatusX]

Whether this intrinsic 'substance' is causal or not is moot. I suspect that there's two ways of looking at it.

By defintion, intrinsic properties do not cause. But there is a way out I'll describe below.

I can't quite see what you're saying here. Science generally argues that our intrinsic conscious experiences are non causal, i.e. we would act the same whether we had those experiences or not. What do you mean by our belief in C being independent of its existence? Sounds like an interesting thought, but don't we believe in consciousness just because we're conscious?

The problem is that if the physical world is casually closed, if consciousness is not physical, and if our discussions about consciousness are physical, then there is a big problem of why we have those talks. Chalmers seems to gloss over this issue by acting like the only problem is justifying our own beliefs over a zombie's, which can only be done from the first person perspective, but can be done nonetheless. I agree with this, but the problem of what causes our discussions in the first place remains baffling. You could trace a chain of causes back through our lives, through evolution, and all you'd find were atoms and forces interacting. And yet, we know, even if we can't justify it to others, that something intrinsic is there, and that it is precisely what we are discussing.

Unless there is one basic thing that has intrinsic aspects which we experience and extrinsic ones that cause us to talk about them. The problem is that if this is a new thing, physicists are going to strongly resist it, and if it is plain old electrons and protons, how do we experience them? And why do we only experience a few of them? Does this mean experience is quantized? How do they cause us to talk about their intrinsic properties? There are possible answers, and many more challenging questions, but I'm in a hurry right now and I'll have to address them later.

 

[Canute]

I'm not sure it makes sense to say that there are such things as intrinsic properties or intrinsic aspects. Properties and aspects are external things, which is the whole problem in a nutshell. Take away everything extrinsic and there must be something intrinsic left over. Why not call this consciousness? If this is beyond science then so be it. We already know that consciousness is beyond observation or measurement, so there's no point in inventing some other intrinsic thing that's beyond science, one's enough.

Causality is a problem, but perhaps consciousness is causal in the sense of being the contingent condition under which physical causation operates. I think this is something like what Rosenberg is arguing, although I haven't got to grips with his argument yet.

For example, when we throw a match on a pile of straw we say that the match caused the resultant fire. But a match only causes a fire given a wide range of contingent conditions (the presence of oxygen, the absence of torrential rain, etc). We wouldn't normally say that these contingent conditions caused the fire, but there'd be no fire without them.

 

[StatusX]

I'm not sure it makes sense to say that there are such things as intrinsic properties or intrinsic aspects. Properties and aspects are external things, which is the whole problem in a nutshell. Take away everything extrinsic and there must be something intrinsic left over. Why not call this consciousness? If this is beyond science then so be it. We already know that consciousness is beyond observation or measurement, so there's no point in inventing some other intrinsic thing that's beyond science, one's enough.

I agree with everything here except the denial of intrinsic properties. Surely red has a different intrinsic nature than blue?

Causality is a problem, but perhaps consciousness is causal in the sense of being the contingent condition under which physical causation operates. I think this is something like what Rosenberg is arguing, although I haven't got to grips with his argument yet.

For example, when we throw a match on a pile of straw we say that the match caused the resultant fire. But a match only causes a fire given a wide range of contingent conditions (the presence of oxygen, the absence of torrential rain, etc). We wouldn't normally say that these contingent conditions caused the fire, but there'd be no fire without them.

I'd like to find a summary of his proposal, since it has been promised to address these problems, and I don't have $45 for the whole book.

As for the subtleties of cause, I've never really explored this. I have always equated a causal role with an explanatory role, and I don't see where there is room for a difference. For example, the concept of neurons firing has (in all likelihood) enough power to explain why we discuss consciousness. Consciousness itself is extraneous. And yet, obviously, this cannot be correct.

 

[nameta9]

Can we understand consciousness without ALREADY HAVING consciousness? This is exactly where the entire problem becomes intractable. Only a conscious mind can behold consciousness, but then we can't take consciousness apart because the entire phenomena-experience is already present and operating and we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are studying it or we can't. It can't be broken down in any way, and isn't composed of parts, its explanation doesn't exist outside itself. This problem is totally intractable. Only an artificial intelligent other being or mind can understand it maybe...

 

[Jio Moonshadow]

Consciousness is the ability to percieve, interpret and react. Our brain uses electrical currents, chemical reactions and another reaction I've found within the studies of physics. Information I must retain. Subconsciouness is a permanate storage. Whe you have a dream it is the permanent memories are sorting themselves. Like defragmenting a hard drive on an older computer.

What is powerful is when you can open the gates to the subconsciounce and attain any information stored.

A man made a comment once. Even though I do not believe in his ethics and lifestyle it made sense. "open the doors of perception". who?

Appreciate having an individual consciousness, thoughts, senses and cocoughfinal value of which to operate freely within a realm. To start to understand consciousness you must first appreciate it.

 

[Canute]

I agree with everything here except the denial of intrinsic properties. Surely red has a different intrinsic nature than blue?

Hmm. That's a tricky one. Do you mean that physically they have different intrinsic natures, or that in consciousness they do?

I'd like to find a summary of his proposal, since it has been promised to address these problems, and I don't have $45 for the whole book.

A chapter at a time Hypnagague is summarising it in the discussion thread. There's a bits and pieces online as well. I haven't got to the bottom of it yet.

As for the subtleties of cause, I've never really explored this. I have always equated a causal role with an explanatory role, and I don't see where there is room for a difference. For example, the concept of neurons firing has (in all likelihood) enough power to explain why we discuss consciousness. Consciousness itself is extraneous. And yet, obviously, this cannot be correct.

I think you've hit on the heart of the problem of cause and explanation. If you explain everything in terms of causes then sooner or later you hit a snag, the 'first cause' problem. Yet without one, if cause is explanation, our existence cannot be explained. So sooner or later in our explanation we have to explain something in non-causal terms.

Thus in Taoism the Tao is not said to cause the universe, but rather the universe comes into existence as a result of the Tao being what it is, which is a different way of looking at it, as more like a contingent condition than a cause. This is relevant to everyday cause and effect, and to the problem of intrinsic 'substance' of things, because the Tao is not some fundamental substance from which the universe arose long ago, but that from which it arises in every moment (so it is said). Similarly GSB's axiomatic 'void' is not causal, but the condition under which, or within which, indications, marks or distinctions can be made. This is quite different to the normal axioms of a system, which are defined as either true or false and which thus 'cause' the theorems that are derived from it. (I'm not sure if that makes sense - just trying it out).

 

[magus niche]

as far as i understand, consciousness is like the rules and cause of energetic phenomena, but is formed by energy. Similar to taoist, i believe there was no beginning, and there is no end, just energy metamorphosing along with consciousness. both dependent upon one another (interdependent).

it is a two way process, and not a simple linear progression. consciousness is not only causal, but caused. equal and opposite to energy. energy is the physicality, or the 'common ground' by which consciousness's interact, and at the same time consciousness is the result of the interaction of energy. this paradox is not a problem to be solved. it is a way of modelling nature without the neccessity of there being a solution to it all. certainty is linked to egoism. knowledge is not a simple definition. knowledge is very powerful. beyond intellectualisms, me thinks.

cheers