What is ' consciousness ' ?

[Thomas123]

This word appears to be at the centre of many discussions on this forum. It also appears to mean different things to different people and, therein lies the root of our miscommunication. What range and definement do you attribute to, ' consciousness ' ?

Is there an external consciousness in the world?. Can I tune into a shared consciousness. I am listening to Prime Minister's Question Time, ....is Boris tuned into a universal human consciousness as he delivers his address. Is his brain working ,simultaneously and in tandem with my own consciousness and with that of others?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #190]

But on what grounds do you insist that consciousness does emerge from unconscious material? How do you know it is not a distinct agency independent of materialism? If it is then it explains rather a lot, it explains why we cannot frame an explanation for consciousness in terms of unconsciousness. I've read about this subject on and off for some forty five years and we get no closer to understanding this.

Seriously? No progress in 45 years? There has probably been more progress on understanding consciousness in the last 45 years than in the prior 5,000 years. Here are just two quicK articles (not behind paywalls) with plenty of references to work done historically, and in the last 45 years:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6364520/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122207/

and this review (behind a paywall, but the abstract summarizes):

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.11 ... o.23.1.557

There are hundreds if not thousands more. We are a LOT closer to understanding consciousness and its biological basis than we were 45 years ago.

This whole discussion seems to boil down to the usual materialist explanation vs. a supernatural (or "something else") explanation. The former at least has some evidentiary support via studies such as those referenced above, books (like the two I referenced earlier that you admitted you had not read), and continuing journal papers describing new research. The latter is just a claim based on the idea that consciousness is something special, without being able to describe what that is except in very general terms. If you're betting on which view wins in the end, the odds are not in the "something else" favor at the moment, and getting slimmer by the year.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #190]

But on what grounds do you insist that consciousness does emerge from unconscious material? How do you know it is not a distinct agency independent of materialism? If it is then it explains rather a lot, it explains why we cannot frame an explanation for consciousness in terms of unconsciousness. I've read about this subject on and off for some forty five years and we get no closer to understanding this.

Seriously? No progress in 45 years? There has probably been more progress on understanding consciousness in the last 45 years than in the prior 5,000 years. Here are just two quicK articles (not behind paywalls) with plenty of references to work done historically, and in the last 45 years:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6364520/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122207/

and this review (behind a paywall, but the abstract summarizes):

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.11 ... o.23.1.557

There are hundreds if not thousands more. We are a LOT closer to understanding consciousness and its biological basis than we were 45 years ago.

On that we must disagree then. I know no more about what consciousness ACTUALLY IS today than I did 45 years ago.

This whole discussion seems to boil down to the usual materialist explanation vs. a supernatural (or "something else") explanation. The former at least has some evidentiary support via studies such as those referenced above, books (like the two I referenced earlier that you admitted you had not read), and continuing journal papers describing new research. The latter is just a claim based on the idea that consciousness is something special, without being able to describe what that is except in very general terms. If you're betting on which view wins in the end, the odds are not in the "something else" favor at the moment, and getting slimmer by the year.

There's no, absolutely no materialist "explanation" for consciousness or free will (the two go hand in hand) and no evidentiary support for such a claim. These realities are inexplicable scientifically because science is wholly deterministic, every theory in science is deterministic that's what enables us to develop falsifiable theories.

If we are facing a non-deterministic phenomenon then we can never ever "explain" it because explanations are always causal, based on determinism.

You try to evade this hard uncomfortable fact by arguing that this is OK because free will is actually not non-deterministic, is causal it just looks like it isn't. But that is an absurdity because if free will really is based on causality then it very obviously cannot be honestly called FREE will can it?

Imagine a "theory of consciousness" or "theory of free will" how would one test it?

What would be the reason that a system decided to do something for no reason? I just rotated the mug on my desk 40 degrees and pulled a face for no reason, because I can, I chose to, I have the ability to choose what to think about - pure free choice, not because of something I did just before.

To be scientifically testable we'd have to ensure some system behaved predictably, did as our theory predicted every time, without a miss, over and over (just as every other scientific test expects in science) - but if you did that could you really claim with a straight face it was conscious? I mean, really?

Or how about this theory "I predict that if we do X, then Y and then Z the system will react by making a decision that I can't predict" - this is the intellectual mess that scientism and materialism lead to, yet so many just love to wallow in the mess rather than see it for what it is - futile.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #192]

On that we must disagree then. I know no more about what consciousness ACTUALLY IS today than I did 45 years ago.

You may not, but a lot of other people certainly do based on the results of an active 45 years of learning progressively more about it.

You try to evade this hard uncomfortable fact by arguing that this is OK because free will is actually not non-deterministic, is causal it just looks like it isn't. But that is an absurdity because if free will really is based on causality then it very obviously cannot be honestly called FREE will can it?

Call it what you like, but there is no reason to believe it does not arise from the interactions of the components of the brain acting deterministically at the molecular level. That this leads to a system capable of making decisions and choosing certain actions is perfectly reasonable. No reason to believe this can't happen just because the individual components can't make decisions ... they do not operate as the complete system does and so don't have its capabilities.

What would be the reason that a system decided to do something for no reason?

It isn't "for no reason." It is because the cummulative actions of the millions or billions of interactions of deterministic parts (neurons, etc.) lead to that outcome. How exactly this happens at the molecular level we may not understand yet, but it is certainly possible and given that the "something else" you think is involved has never been shown to exist it is hard to accept that such an "explanation" has any validity.

To be scientifically testable we'd have to ensure some system behaved predictably, did as our theory predicted every time, without a miss, over and over (just as every other scientific test expects in science) - but if you did that could you really claim with a straight face it was conscious? I mean, really?

Not sure I follow the question. I wouldn't say a testable theory was conscious because I don't believe theories can have such a property. But I do think that if we understood consciousness, memory, etc. at the molecular level, including all of the chemical and electrical interactions, we could predict every decision a person may make given all of the factors their brain would weigh to make the decision. But there are too many factors for us to have any chance of doing that today. We don't even know how memory works exactly and that is just one of the components.

Just because we don't understand a highly complicated, mult-facted problem like how the brain makes decisions and chooses, does not mean the default answer MUST be some external, mysterious force or agent. But that is what you are claiming. How do you go about testing for the existence of this "thing"? Why should anyone believe it exists when there is no evidence for it?

[Clownboat]

But on what grounds do you insist that consciousness does emerge from unconscious material?

I insist on no such thing as I'm not trying to save a religious belief. I'll follow the evidence wherever it leads, ain't my pig, ain't my farm as they say.
I do not claim that we have free will because we may only be perceiving that we have free will. To go beyond this is to assume the unknown.

"But I really want to go to heaven" is not valid reasoning to pretend to understand free will and whether or not we have it.

Those who are devotes of scientism will never understand consciousness, they are looking in the wrong place (the creation), it is the creation that is explained by will, consciousness, there is no other way to create other than to have will, therefore will must underpin everything even the laws of nature and matter and energy, these are all consequence of will - God's will, there is simply no scientific way to explain them.

Ignoring the poisoning of the well...
Having a perceptiong that we have free would surley explain this, so you are wrong.

[William]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #194]

...therefore will must underpin everything even the laws of nature and matter and energy, these are all consequence of will - God's will, ...

Shaky ground as the premise "Gods Will" is not enough to base anything on.

Who's 'God' and from that 'what is the nature of this God's will'?

All too sketchy to be making claims that "the laws of nature and matter and energy, these are all consequence of "Gods Will"...

My position does not altogether exempt the idea that some type of 'will' must be involved in the existence of the physical universe, but it does prevent me from making claims regarding the nature of said "will" and saying it was "Gods will", as that is an act of making claims re the nature of said will.

Far more information is required to bridge that gap, and trying to leap it in the fashion that you are, means risking a misstep and falling into that void...or more pointedly, can only result in a misstep...so "avoid leaping and attempt to build a bridge"...is solid advise.

[Inquirer]

But on what grounds do you insist that consciousness does emerge from unconscious material?

I insist on no such thing as I'm not trying to save a religious belief. I'll follow the evidence wherever it leads, ain't my pig, ain't my farm as they say.
I do not claim that we have free will because we may only be perceiving that we have free will. To go beyond this is to assume the unknown.

"But I really want to go to heaven" is not valid reasoning to pretend to understand free will and whether or not we have it.

Nobody in the thread made such a statement FYI.

Those who are devotes of scientism will never understand consciousness, they are looking in the wrong place (the creation), it is the creation that is explained by will, consciousness, there is no other way to create other than to have will, therefore will must underpin everything even the laws of nature and matter and energy, these are all consequence of will - God's will, there is simply no scientific way to explain them.

Ignoring the poisoning of the well...
Having a perceptiong that we have free would surley explain this, so you are wrong.

[brunumb]

[Replying to brunumb in post #185]

I've listened to 16 minutes and although it is of some interest I can't get a clear idea of what Seth actually believes with respect to consciousness. Not sure if he has a concrete opinion even or if he is simply fascinated by the subject.

Perhaps you need to read his book. That said, I am not particularly interested in your opinion on the talk.

[brunumb]

I know no more about what consciousness ACTUALLY IS today than I did 45 years ago.

I don't speak Chinese any better today than I did 45 years ago.

[Swami]

I'm of the opinion that the primary problem with consciousness and free will and so on, is that we are insisting that it be scientifically explicable, that it can be subject to reductionism like everything else we strive to explain scientifically.

It could actually be that it cannot be reduced, that it is a fundamental aspect of reality that stands apart from the deterministic universe. The struggle we have is when we insist on trying to represent consciousness and free will in terms of materialism, as some quality that can emerge from matter and laws of nature.

That is to me, the actual problem, because if consciousness is a distinct fundamental quality apart from the laws of nature, matter, forces, then we will never succeed in "understanding" it in terms of those things. If we cling to a belief in materialism and causality then we are doomed to always fail.

It will take a big change in how we view things though to ever adopt this approach, much as the link between electricity and magnetism was never once suspected until quite late in the study of them, then it all "clicked" into place. There is no electricity, there is no magnetism there is only electro-magnetism a single concept that was perceived as two unrelated distinct things but in the end was never that. Electricity and magnetism are forever inextricably linked aspects of a more profound phenomenon, well expressed with Maxwell's equations.

The point of that little digression is to suggest that free will, consciousness is the basis of (not emergent from) the material universe we perceive around us, as I mentioned in a related thread, free will can choose to behave, to appear as determinism, we can behave deterministically if we choose to but we are not compelled to.

You said that science has been dealing with consciousness for 40 years with little progress. I have been spreading my message on consciousness for 40+ years. I've come to realize that debate will never convince anyone. Only those that are willing to do the field research by experiencing fundamental consciousness will get it and change their view. Unlike Christianity, this enlightenment is open opportunity. No God is needed to open your heart.

It's come to a point that I am no longer interested in what a scientist has to say about reality unless I find out his view on consciousness. I am no longer interested reading Western philosophy unless the writer is informed by Eastern thought. When you get consciousness wrong, then logically everything else will be wrong and out of place.

[Inquirer]

I'm of the opinion that the primary problem with consciousness and free will and so on, is that we are insisting that it be scientifically explicable, that it can be subject to reductionism like everything else we strive to explain scientifically.

It could actually be that it cannot be reduced, that it is a fundamental aspect of reality that stands apart from the deterministic universe. The struggle we have is when we insist on trying to represent consciousness and free will in terms of materialism, as some quality that can emerge from matter and laws of nature.

That is to me, the actual problem, because if consciousness is a distinct fundamental quality apart from the laws of nature, matter, forces, then we will never succeed in "understanding" it in terms of those things. If we cling to a belief in materialism and causality then we are doomed to always fail.

It will take a big change in how we view things though to ever adopt this approach, much as the link between electricity and magnetism was never once suspected until quite late in the study of them, then it all "clicked" into place. There is no electricity, there is no magnetism there is only electro-magnetism a single concept that was perceived as two unrelated distinct things but in the end was never that. Electricity and magnetism are forever inextricably linked aspects of a more profound phenomenon, well expressed with Maxwell's equations.

The point of that little digression is to suggest that free will, consciousness is the basis of (not emergent from) the material universe we perceive around us, as I mentioned in a related thread, free will can choose to behave, to appear as determinism, we can behave deterministically if we choose to but we are not compelled to.

You said that science has been dealing with consciousness for 40 years with little progress. I have been spreading my message on consciousness for 40+ years. I've come to realize that debate will never convince anyone. Only those that are willing to do the field research by experiencing fundamental consciousness will get it and change their view. Unlike Christianity, this enlightenment is open opportunity. No God is needed to open your heart.

It's come to a point that I am no longer interested in what a scientist has to say about reality unless I find out his view on consciousness. I am no longer interested reading Western philosophy unless the writer is informed by Eastern thought. When you get consciousness wrong, then logically everything else will be wrong and out of place.

I by and large agree, as my posts indicate western sciences regard consciousness as something that can be reduced to unconscious matter and laws, they regard matter, laws, determinism as the basis for all that we observe and I think that is a terrible mistake. Consciousness, awareness, free will are in fact much better seen as the basis of everything we observe. They seek a theory of consciousness and expect to express that theory in terms of material quantities and mathematical laws (determinism) which is futile (and I think it is clearly futile) because a theory must be falsifiable and tested and that requires predictability - a theory in science must correctly predict outcomes - but if free will is unpredictable (which it must be if it is not causal) then how can we ever hope to test a theory of it.

"I created an artificial mind and tested it, it should have thought about algebra but it did not, it thought about trees. Clearly it does not have free will because if it did have it would have thought as we predicted it would think".

I've pointed this out several times here but it seems to fall on deaf ears, at least you have an awareness of how profound this is.