Does the body need consciousness?

[AgnosticBoy]

[William]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #30]

I'd argue that the bodily purpose of consciousness is to create all of these things so that we can function at the level humans do.

Why? We witness the activity of consciousness through the human instrument - no argument necessary.
But why see it as purpose? This implies that something conscious emerged from a material thing, but the material thing had reason for creating such device.

My dog is conscious and able to utilize its 5 senses and act like a dog, but he can't do calculus or compose a symphony and never will because his brain capacity does not allow it. He's conscious, but lacks the intelligence level of a human.

So you believe that the necessity of consciousness is to create intelligence?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to William in post #31]

Why? We witness the activity of consciousness through the human instrument - no argument necessary.
But why see it as purpose? This implies that something conscious emerged from a material thing, but the material thing had reason for creating such device.

Had reason? I'm not sure what that means in this context. Brains evolved in response to the need for more centralized control of ever more complex bodies that required higher integration functions. If consciousness is an emergent property of a brain (as I believe) then it naturally arose when brains were able to process multiple sensory inputs and use those to make decisions (eg. fight or flight). But it wasn't any kind of intentional action by the material thing ... it evolved without any such input.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00082/full

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1201889109

So you believe that the necessity of consciousness is to create intelligence?

No ... it is just awareness that exists at levels from worm brains to human brains and everything in between. My point was that my dog is just as conscious as I am (as far as having the necessary brain functions to be aware of his surroundings, to be "awake", etc.), but his brain does not have the capacity for the intelligence level of a human. Apparently, the Homo sapien brain existed (physically) much like it does today some 200-300K years ago, but we existed back then as simple hunter gatherers for many tens of thousands of years before some of them figured out farming only about 10-15K years ago (Neolithic), then only 5-6K years ago someone figured out a basic writing system. The level of consciousness of Homo sapiens 200-300K years ago was presumably the same as ours today, but their intelligence level was orders of magnitude below because they did not have access to many millennia of accumulating knowledge to take advantage of as we do today.

[William]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #32]

Had reason? I'm not sure what that means in this context. Brains evolved in response to the need for more centralized control of ever more complex bodies that required higher integration functions. If consciousness is an emergent property of a brain (as I believe) then it naturally arose when brains were able to process multiple sensory inputs and use those to make decisions (eg. fight or flight). But it wasn't any kind of intentional action by the material thing ... it evolved without any such input.

According to your belief - it wasn't any kind of intentional action by the material thing - at least, not initially.

[The intention came later - as consciousness took control. for we know that consciousness can and does operate with intent. ]

A convenient belief, but one in which accepts the clock-face as the evidence of reality, rather than the mechanisms behind the clock-face.

However, spacetime is not fundamental, so the brain is responding only to what it believes to be reality, rather than to reality itself.

On the other hand Consciousness is able to - at the very least - figure out mathematically, that the mechanisms, [of which the brain is one such mechanism] are part of the clock-face and do not represent any actual fundamental reality.

The level of consciousness of Homo sapiens 200-300K years ago was presumably the same as ours today, but their intelligence level was orders of magnitude below because they did not have access to many millennia of accumulating knowledge to take advantage of as we do today.

And yet, the intelligence has thus far been unwilling to accept from that vast array of accumulating knowledge, that the reality being experienced is not fundamental, thus beliefs about consciousness [such as you own], remain locked in and apparently immovable.

The hard problem of consciousness remains, but the materialistic beliefs act as if the problem has been solved already.

[AgnosticBoy]

The way I look at it is that if consciousness equals brain or is a product of it, then scientists should be able to discover subjective experience or deduce its existence simply by studying the brain. To date, that seems inconceivable that that would happen. I brought this up to DrNoGods before, as i'm sure many others have in different ways, yet he continues to claim that consciousness poses no special challenge to science or materialism.

The facts are that the ONLY way scientists know of subjective experience (or consciousness) is because we all experience it and can report it. Scientists did not discover its existence empirically nor did they deduce its existence. Our knowledge of neural correlates would not exist unless the subject was able to tell us what they're experiencing while observing their corresponding brain activity. SO even our neural correlates of consciousness are simply neural correlates of our subjective reports of our experience.

If anything William, we can just look at the history of science on this issue. We can find that scientists have tried to take the cheap way out by banning the study of consciousness. That's doesn't exactly match the pattern of success of materialist science to boldly take on challenges and to explain things and develop technology. But here we are, William and I (two humble agnostics), still not taken seriously because we dare to consider that consciousness might be something that's less than physical.

[William]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #34]

If anything William, we can just look at the history of science on this issue. We can find that scientists have tried to take the cheap way out by banning the study of consciousness. That's doesn't exactly match the pattern of success of materialist science to boldly take on challenges and to explain things and develop technology. But here we are, William and I (two humble agnostics), still not taken seriously because we dare to consider that consciousness might be something that's less than physical.

The important thing AB, is to keep trying. As Joey Knothead commented to me recently;

Joey Knothead: You expose my atheism for the agnosticism it really is.

I myself lean toward theistic interpretation of existence because it works more directly with the fact of consciousness, rather than attempting to designate it as somehow 'besides the point' in relation to science.

To be fair, there are scientists who are focusing their attention on consciousness [Donald Hoffman for example] and his approach is genuine and he has much respect for his scientist peers.

It needs to be understood that the hard problem of consciousness is problematic because of the ideas which spring from the possibility that consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain - many do not want to 'go there' because of the stigma attached to it re 'crazy' folk who go too far without good supporting scientific structures to ensure that the 'too far' is always tempered by rationality and logic - because there is very strong evidence that lack of such support leads to cult-activity which either has its leaders and followers committing mass suicide or avoiding such through eventually becoming a 'respected religion' ...both options unnecessary and avoidable by maintaining the solid practices science prides itself in acoomplishing.

Nevertheless, consciousness being the enigma it is - the "Ghost in The Machinery" - the stigma attached to that concept can only be erased if we learn to understand that there is nothing 'super-natural' about it - without having to resort to the notion that it is an emergent property of nature.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #34]

To date, that seems inconceivable that that would happen. I brought this up to DrNoGods before, as i'm sure many others have in different ways, yet he continues to claim that consciousness poses no special challenge to science or materialism.

I don't think I've ever made any explicit claim that "consciousness poses no special challenge to science or materialism." My argument is that it has not been shown NOT to be an emergent property of a working brain so I favor that explanation as a default position. Why invoke some nonnatural explanation rather than saying we simply don't understand the mechanistic details and so it is an open science problem?

There are countless of examples of integrated systems having more capability (or new capabilities) than the individual components that make up the system. An airplane can fly despite being heavier than air (something Lord Kelvin claimed was impossible in 1895), and we don't consider that capability to be anything nonnatural because we thoroughly understand the physics of how airplanes fly. Understanding how consciousness is created may well be added to this list one day:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... y-science/

Why can't "experience" be encoded as memory that consists of multple elements from our senses? We experience things via our senses and react according to prior stored knowledge and learned behavior. Science doesn't understand exactly how memory works at the molecular level yet, but it is more familiar to things we do understand (eg. memory in a computer) so doesn't seem to be considered anything magical or special despite the lack of understanding of how it exactly works. Consciousness may be just another item in this category that is more complicated. I don't see any reason to claim it is not an emergent property of a brain. At least there are strong correlations to support that idea and it as not been disproven.

[brunumb]

But here we are, William and I (two humble agnostics), still not taken seriously because we dare to consider that consciousness might be something that's less than physical.

Why does my consciousness remain only associated with me and go wherever I go?
Why is my consciousness only aware of things that my brain processes as a result of stimulus received through the senses?
Why can't my consciousness be shared with others if it is something other than a phenomenon associated with my brain?
How did I acquire my particular consciousness?
If my brain is affected and I am effectively unconscious, where is my so-called consciousness if it is something other than a brain phenomenon?
What specifically would a planet or the universe be conscious of and how would it process that information?

If you are not taken seriously it is not because you dare to consider that consciousness might be something that's less than physical. It would be because you really have no sound basis for any alternatives.

[AgnosticBoy]

But here we are, William and I (two humble agnostics), still not taken seriously because we dare to consider that consciousness might be something that's less than physical.

Why does my consciousness remain only associated with me and go wherever I go?
Why is my consciousness only aware of things that my brain processes as a result of stimulus received through the senses?
Why can't my consciousness be shared with others if it is something other than a phenomenon associated with my brain?
How did I acquire my particular consciousness?
If my brain is affected and I am effectively unconscious, where is my so-called consciousness if it is something other than a brain phenomenon?

All valid points but none of them justify the unnecessary or restrictive conclusion that consciousness is caused by or limited to brain. The evidence is not in to go that far. The brain may also be a medium for consciousness, where consciousness interacts with brain but is not limited to it. This is a reasonably open-minded conclusion.

What specifically would a planet or the universe be conscious of and how would it process that information?

Well this is dependent on how we define consciousness. If a minimal level of consciousness involves the ability to respond in some way, then that would eliminate even patient's in a vegetative state. I also wonder when or where do Eastern conceptions of consciousness come into play here? Why should we ignore them? This seems to be part of what William is bringing up here.

Many traditions in the East have proposed that consciousness without content is possible and could be achieved with mental training. However, it is not clear whether such a state is possible given that intentionality is a critical property of mentality and consciousness in many theories of consciousness.

Source: Srinivasan, Narayanan . Consciousness Without Content: A Look at Evidence and Prospects, Front Psychol. 2020; 11: 1992.

If awareness can exist without any content, then that opens the door for more than just living things to have it.

If you are not taken seriously it is not because you dare to consider that consciousness might be something that's less than physical. It would be because you really have no sound basis for any alternatives.

For the record, my position is not that consciousness is nonphysical but rather that we don't know if it's physical or not. Like I said before, the most obvious hole in the materialist position is not being able to define or detect consciousness in any physical way. Consciousness is not something that was discovered empirically nor was its existence even deduced from physical facts, but rather they know about it because us subjects can report it to them. Sure the materialist has evidence from the interactions of brain and consciousness, but that doesn't mean that consciousness is limited to the brain or anything physical for that matter. It may be physical at some level but the more subjective you get, then the more it becomes less physical.

[brunumb]

Just noticed this in YouTube. Haven't watched it yet but thought it might be of some interest.

Asking a Theoretical Physicist About the Physics of Consciousness | Roger Penrose & Jordan Peterson

[AgnosticBoy]