We don't know if consciousness is physical, Period.

[AgnosticBoy]

On another thread, one member stated the following regarding consciousness:

Where you are begging the question is when you assume that the mind (i e. Something immaterial) is responsible for that, when the brain (network of neurons plugged to stimulus from the outside world + a bunch of accidents of evolution) can perfectly be pointed as the source of those behavior.

Before assuming something immaterial is responsible for a phenomenon, starts by proving something immaterial exist to begin with.

Not only am I skeptical of this claim, which is a common claim made by atheists, but I also get annoyed by the level of confidence that people have in the above claim. If the researchers that study consciousness acknowledge that it presents a 'hard problem', then why should I believe any claims that explain consciousness as being physical? In my view, there are good reasons to doubt that consciousness is material or physical. The way I look at it is that even if consciousness is physical, it is still unlike any other physical phenomenon in the Universe. The main reason for that is that the presence of subjectivity. As it stands, subjective experiences can only be observed by the subject. Also, they are not measurable nor observable from the third-person point-of-view. Don't all of those characteristics sound familiar to some thing else? Immaterial or non-physical (also being unobservable, not measurable, etc.)?

Please debate:
1. Is it arrogant to claim that consciousness is physical?
2. Are there good reasons to doubt that it is physical? Or do you agree with the point from the post I quoted at the beginning of this post?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #1]

1. Is it arrogant to claim that consciousness is physical?

Do you mean consciousness itself, or the source of consciousness? If consciousness is a manifestation of brain activity, then it can be a nonphysical thing like a thought, or a mental image, or an emotion, etc. I don't know of anyone who claims consciousness is, itself, a physical thing that is made of some sort of matter or energy, but I expect some would make that claim. I wouldn't call it arrogant to believe the consciousness is an emergent property of a working brain, as that is what seems to be the most obvious explanation to me. If a living thing with a brain dies, or has its brain damaged sufficiently, consciousness vanishes (assuming a definition of consciousness as awareness in general). Are there examples of any living thing posessing consciousness that does not have a working brain?

Subjective experience being only observable by the subject would seem to support the idea that each individual's brain processes information differently (or can) and thus produces a different interpretation or response. An living thing without a brain (eg. a plant) does not appear to be conscious or have subjective experiences.

2. Are there good reasons to doubt that it is physical? Or do you agree with the point in the post I quoted at the beginning of this post?

Assuming you mean the source of consciousness rather than consciousness itself, what evidence is there to support the idea that it does not arise from normal brain activity? All animals with brains appear to have some level of consciousness, and the more advanced the brain the more experiences, and subjective interpretation, and intelligence, exists. If not an emergent property of a working brain, what else explains consciousness better? The correlation between having a working brain, and possessing consciousness, seems too high to me to reject the idea that consciousness is anything more than a manifestation of a functioning brain.

[Bubuche87]

1/ any argument from ignorance is invalid. I don't know X therefore Y is invalid. Here we have our absence of knowledge of how consciousness works. Trying to use that to say what it is is fallacious.
2/ any claim has a burden of proof. If I claim consciousness is physical, I have to prove it. If you claim it's not, you have to prove it.
Now, we have plenty of evidence for the natural stuff, and no evidence for the non-natural stuff. By induction we are justified in believing it's material.
3/ Before stating (like you did) what are the characteristics of the non-natural you have to prove it exists.
4/ the fact that we need telescopes to observe distant galaxies isn't an evidence that the telescope is more fundamental than the galaxies it observes.
In the same way, we observe the world through our consciousness, it doesn't mean it's more fundamental than the physical world.
5/ post-hoc rationalizations are useless. We know, because of the problem of underdeterminism that there is an infinity of ways to explain any set of data.
The only thing that matters to distinguish your model from the others is : what kind of futur novel testable repeatable predictions your model can make ?

[boatsnguitars]

On another thread, one member stated the following regarding consciousness:

Where you are begging the question is when you assume that the mind (i e. Something immaterial) is responsible for that, when the brain (network of neurons plugged to stimulus from the outside world + a bunch of accidents of evolution) can perfectly be pointed as the source of those behavior.

Before assuming something immaterial is responsible for a phenomenon, starts by proving something immaterial exist to begin with.

Not only am I skeptical of this claim, which is a common claim made by atheists, but I also get annoyed by the level of confidence that people have in the above claim. If the researchers that study consciousness acknowledge that it presents a 'hard problem', then why should I believe any claims that explain consciousness as being physical? In my view, there are good reasons to doubt that consciousness is material or physical. The way I look at it is that even if consciousness is physical, it is still unlike any other physical phenomenon in the Universe. The main reason for that is that the presence of subjectivity. As it stands, subjective experiences can only be observed by the subject. Also, they are not measurable nor observable from the third-person point-of-view. Don't all of those characteristics sound familiar to some thing else? Immaterial or non-physical (also being unobservable, not measurable, etc.)?

Please debate:
1. Is it arrogant to claim that consciousness is physical?
2. Are there good reasons to doubt that it is physical? Or do you agree with the point from the post I quoted at the beginning of this post?

1. No, it's not arrogant, it's completely rational to hold this view:

A. Correlation between brain activity and conscious experience: One of the strongest arguments for physicalism is the close correlation between brain activity and conscious experience. Brain imaging studies have shown that specific regions of the brain are activated when people have certain kinds of experiences, such as seeing colors or hearing sounds. Damage to specific areas of the brain can also result in changes to conscious experience, such as blindness or deafness. This correlation suggests that conscious experience is closely tied to physical processes in the brain.

I have to wonder why you get annoyed at the confidence atheists have, when they are the ones providing all the scientific evidence to support their claim, while non-physicalists continue to hem and haw and hide behind elaborate smoke screens.

B. Evolutionary explanation: Physicalists argue that consciousness is a product of biological evolution, and as such, it is a physical phenomenon. Consciousness likely evolved as an adaptation to help organisms navigate and survive in their environments. If consciousness were a non-physical phenomenon, it would be difficult to explain how it could evolve through natural selection.

C. Occam's Razor: Physicalism is often seen as the simplest and most parsimonious explanation for consciousness. It avoids the need to posit non-physical entities or forces, which can be seen as unnecessary and unprovable. The physicalist view argues that all phenomena, including consciousness, can ultimately be explained in terms of physical processes.

D. Lack of evidence for non-physical entities: While some argue that consciousness is not physical, there is currently no empirical evidence for the existence of non-physical entities or forces that can explain consciousness. While the subjective nature of consciousness presents challenges for physicalist explanations, this does not necessarily imply that consciousness is non-physical.


2. No, there are no good reasons to doubt the physical nature of consciousness. What else is there?

Non-physicalists argue that conscious experience has properties that cannot be reduced to physical properties. They point to the subjective nature of consciousness, which cannot be directly observed or measured by others, and argue that it requires a non-physical or spiritual explanation. They also argue that the complexity of conscious experience cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone. Which is to say, they are arguing from the gaps in our knowledge ("Can't be observed or measured" Who says it can't be? Maybe not at the moment, but it's not right to say it will never be measured. Meanwhile, Physicalists are showing how we are able to measure much of our brain activity and it's relation to consciousness.)

Non-Physicalist are like pre-Darwin/pre-dna biologists claiming "we can't know how all these species arrived! We'll never be able to know, deep down, how each species get their particular shape and size!". Then Darwin, and later, dna science does exactly that.

We will soon be able to measure our brain activity with regard to subjective experiences, consciousness, etc. Be patient.

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the physicalist model of consciousness comes from studies of patients with brain injuries or neurological disorders. For example, patients with damage to specific regions of the brain, such as the visual cortex, can experience corresponding deficits in conscious experience, such as blindness or color blindness (Cowey, 2010). This suggests that specific areas of the brain are responsible for generating conscious experience, and that conscious experience can be directly linked to physical processes in the brain.

Similarly, studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown that specific patterns of brain activity are associated with different kinds of conscious experiences, such as seeing a face or hearing a sound (Gazzaniga et al., 2008). This suggests that conscious experience is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but rather a complex interplay of different neural processes in the brain.

Moreover, recent research has shown that certain patterns of neural activity in the brain can predict conscious experience with remarkable accuracy. For example, a study by Kamitani and Tong (2005) showed that it was possible to predict with 75% accuracy which of two images a person was looking at based solely on their patterns of brain activity. This suggests that conscious experience can be directly linked to specific patterns of neural activity in the brain.


As Bebuche87 said: "Now, we have plenty of evidence for the natural stuff, and no evidence for the non-natural stuff. By induction we are justified in believing it's material."

Non-physicalists: prove there is something non-material and we can re-ignite the debate. Until then... best of luck in your endeavor to cheat people out of money claiming there is "energy" and "spirit" and other woo...

[AgnosticBoy]

1. Is it arrogant to claim that consciousness is physical?

Do you mean consciousness itself, or the source of consciousness?

I meant consciousness itself in my debate question. As for your other option regarding the source of consciousness, I think that we would end up disagreeing on its source if you say that it's the brain. I view the brain as just being a medium for consciousness to express itself, but I also acknowledge that ruling out the brain doesn't mean that other sources can't be physical.

My only claim here is that there's no empirical justification for the view that consciousness is physical.

If consciousness is a manifestation of brain activity, then it can be a nonphysical thing like a thought, or a mental image, or an emotion, etc. I don't know of anyone who claims consciousness is, itself, a physical thing that is made of some sort of matter or energy, but I expect some would make that claim.

We're reaching the same conclusion but it seems like it's for different reasons. The simple fact is consciousness and other mental phenomenon are drastically different than the brain and its activity. The brain and its activity are observable and measurable, but subjective experience is not.

I wouldn't call it arrogant to believe the consciousness is an emergent property of a working brain, as that is what seems to be the most obvious explanation to me. If a living thing with a brain dies, or has its brain damaged sufficiently, consciousness vanishes (assuming a definition of consciousness as awareness in general). Are there examples of any living thing posessing consciousness that does not have a working brain?

Your points here deal with the source of consciousness. What I fail to see is why couldn't all that you're describing work if the brain was just a medium for consciousness. In my view, saying that brain causes consciousness is a needlessly restrictive view. Such a view will be easily knocked down when or if all of the beyond the brain/body experiences and machine/AI consciousness come knocking on the door of science. But if you claim that consciousness is just a medium for consciousness, it not only enjoys the benefits of accounting for the interactions you brought up, but it can also accommodate the extraordinary experiences and AI. I hope that anti-supernatural/religious biases don't play a role here

Subjective experience being only observable by the subject would seem to support the idea that each individual's brain processes information differently (or can) and thus produces a different interpretation or response. An living thing without a brain (eg. a plant) does not appear to be conscious or have subjective experiences.

I question that last part. Decades ago, we would've said the same about those in a coma or vegetative state. The point here is that not being able to detect consciousness may just be due to not having a way to measure it and/or not knowing what to measure.

2. Are there good reasons to doubt that it is physical? Or do you agree with the point in the post I quoted at the beginning of this post?

Assuming you mean the source of consciousness rather than consciousness itself, what evidence is there to support the idea that it does not arise from normal brain activity? All animals with brains appear to have some level of consciousness, and the more advanced the brain the more experiences, and subjective interpretation, and intelligence, exists. If not an emergent property of a working brain, what else explains consciousness better? The correlation between having a working brain, and possessing consciousness, seems too high to me to reject the idea that consciousness is anything more than a manifestation of a functioning brain.

There is evidence that consciousness persists during impaired brain function, at times, when scientists/doctors thought that it would not be present. Then there's also the limitations with measuring consciousness that I brought up previously.

What I see in the science of consciousness is that scientists don't have an explanation or a proven/coherent theory for it. Their knowledge of it essentially boils down to associations, as in, saying this occurs when that occurs. No real understanding of how and why.

[AgnosticBoy]

1/ any argument from ignorance is invalid. I don't know X therefore Y is invalid. Here we have our absence of knowledge of how consciousness works. Trying to use that to say what it is is fallacious.

Does that also go for claims that it is physical?

2/ any claim has a burden of proof. If I claim consciousness is physical, I have to prove it. If you claim it's not, you have to prove it.
Now, we have plenty of evidence for the natural stuff, and no evidence for the non-natural stuff. By induction we are justified in believing it's material.

Sure, but you can only use inductive arguments to draw probable conclusions and not definite conclusions. If your premises were true, then it is likely that consciousness is material. However, your premises aren't true. We do know that subjective experiences are not observable nor measurable. The only way we know about it is because we all experience it and are able to report it to others. Every other physical thing you refer to does not work that way.

3/ Before stating (like you did) what are the characteristics of the non-natural you have to prove it exists.

The distinction I'm making here is not between natural and non-natural, but rather physical and non-physical. I'm okay with non-physical being classified under natural. I don't think a god or spirits are needed for my view of consciousness.

4/ the fact that we need telescopes to observe distant galaxies isn't an evidence that the telescope is more fundamental than the galaxies it observes.
In the same way, we observe the world through our consciousness, it doesn't mean it's more fundamental than the physical world.

I'm not claiming that consciousness is fundamental either. I'm trying to keep it simple by basing my view on what we do know. My simple point is that the ontology of subjectivity is unlike any other physical thing in the Universe. If anything, its ontology seems close to what we'd expect if something were non-physical.

5/ post-hoc rationalizations are useless. We know, because of the problem of underdeterminism that there is an infinity of ways to explain any set of data.
The only thing that matters to distinguish your model from the others is : what kind of futur novel testable repeatable predictions your model can make ?

I don't have that answer as I don't have a theory. BUT, I will point you to this interesting article (consider it all theoretical in terms of what might emerge if consciousness was non-physical):

Neuroscience today says consciousness is generated by and localized in the brain because it emerges from brain activity. Alternatively, we propose that consciousness may not originate in the brain, although some aspects of human perception of consciousness may be dependent on the brain. We also suggest that awareness also extends beyond the brain. These non-physical, non-local properties of consciousness may be due to a non-local material effect, to consciousness being fundamental, or something else we have not yet discovered.

In the next section, we propose specific phenomena that we would expect to see if non-local consciousness theories are correct.
Phenomenon #1: Perceiving information about distant locations
Phenomenon #2: Perceiving information from another person
Phenomenon #3: Perceiving the future
Phenomenon #4: Apparent cognitive abilities beyond the experience/learning/skill of the person exhibiting them
Phenomenon #6: Cognitive abilities can be retained when the brain is seriously compromised

Source: Wahbeh H, Radin D, Cannard C and Delorme A (2022) What if consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain? Observational and empirical challenges to materialistic models. Front. Psychol. 13:955594. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.955594

[Bubuche87]

Does that also go for claims that it is physical?

Yes !
If the science where claiming "it's likely physical because we don't know it's not physical" it would be a fallacy.
But it's not the case.
The claim is, by induction : we have evidence of physical stuff, we have no evidence of non physical stuff so it's logical to conclude that whatever produces consciousness is physical an not non-physical.
If we see a hoofprint in the snow it's reasonable to say it's a horse (because we know horses exist) and unreasonable to say it's a unicorn (because we have no evidence they exist).

If you have a problem with induction, it's your problem, not mine.

We do know that subjective experiences are not observable nor measurable.

No we don't !
Wow do not know how to measure them =/= it's impossible to measure them.
Argument from ignorance, like I said.

If anything, its ontology seems close to what we'd expect if something were non-physical.

Let me quote myself, my previous message.

3/ Before stating (like you did) what are the characteristics of the non-natural you have to prove it exists.

You cannot say what we would expect if it was non-physical, because we don't know if non-physical things exist, let alone what we would expect from them.

Also, I cannot emphasis that enough: "what we would expect from" is post hoc and useless. Give novel predictions.
I can imagine a particle that would make the world exactly as it is. The world is exactly like it is, there my particle exist ?
No because my particle doesn't allow me to make novel testable predictions, so it counts for nothing.

Quoting le again:

5/ post-hoc rationalizations are useless. We know, because of the problem of underdeterminism that there is an infinity of ways to explain any set of data.
The only thing that matters to distinguish your model from the others is : what kind of futur novel testable repeatable predictions your model can make ?

I'll read the article later.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #5]

My only claim here is that there's no empirical justification for the view that consciousness is physical.

I wouldn't argue with that. I don't think it is physical either any more than a thought is physical, or an inspiration, or a hunch. Consciousness appears to be a manifestation of the workings of a physical brain ... an emergent property. That seems (to me) to be the most obvious and reasonable explanation given all of our observations.

The simple fact is consciousness and other mental phenomenon are drastically different than the brain and its activity. The brain and its activity are observable and measurable, but subjective experience is not.

How are consciousness and other mental phenomena not simply the result of brain activity? What could cause consciousness if not a working brain? The ability to think, learn, have memory, interpret electrical and chemical signals for our five senses, etc. are all the result of brain activity. The ability to be aware of our existence and surroundings, and to have subjective experiences and memories, are enabled by the brain.

What I fail to see is why couldn't all that you're describing work if the brain was just a medium for consciousness.

What does that mean? How would consciousness "get into" the brain and occupy it? If consciousness were some external "thing" that somehow occupied our brains, then why would we not all have the same behavior, the same opinions and experiences, likes and dislikes, etc. once it occupied our brains? It is malleable and just a starting point for a newborn animal to use somehow? I don't see how this scheme is any different from the newborn having some base level of awareness and brain ability enabled purely by physical brain function, that expands as it learns and experiences things over time.

In my view, saying that brain causes consciousness is a needlessly restrictive view.

Why? All observations point to that being the most likely explanation. If consciousness were something separate from an emergent property of a working brain, what is its origin? How does it come to occupy a brain as a medium? If it were something physical, does it have mass? Is it pure energy of some sort? How would anyone study it as a separate entity?

I hope that anti-supernatural/religious biases don't play a role here.

My view on consciousness has nothing to do with not believing in gods and the supernatural. I just don't see any explanation for it that makes sense besides it being purely the result of normal brain operation. A human brain, in particular, is a very complex thinking machine with tens of billions of neurons:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/

and very complicated interactions between neurons, memory elements, external electrical and chemical inputs, etc. We are more intelligent than other creatures who also possess consciousness, with intelligence level clearly on different scales as the brain becomes simpler and smaller such as in worms. Would you describe a human as "more conscious" than a worm or a mouse?

The point here is that not being able to detect consciousness may just be due to not having a way to measure it and/or not knowing what to measure.

What I see in the science of consciousness is that scientists don't have an explanation or a proven/coherent theory for it. Their knowledge of it essentially boils down to associations, as in, saying this occurs when that occurs. No real understanding of how and why.

What is the alternative? This is true of any open science problem ... offer up the best explanation based on observations and experiments, and continue to refine as more information becomes available. It seems there is a lot more observational evidence that consciousness is an emergent property of a working brain than that it is something else ... whatever that something else is. Has anyone offered up a description for consciousness that does not involve it being an emergent property of a brain, and that also doesn't boil down to associations, guesses, etc.? How far are the "non emergent" scientists in explaining consciousness compared to those in the emergent property category?

[Bubuche87]

What I fail to see is why couldn't all that you're describing work if the brain was just a medium for consciousness

And I fail to see how this is not a god of the gaps fallacy.
If I have the theory that little demons pull objects toward the ground when I drop them, you'll have a hard time proving it's not the case.

The fact is that anybody can come with an explanation after the facts are known to explain why they happened. It's exactly what all conspiracy theorist are doing.
It's not hard to do at all.

Now, what is really hard is predict the future, things we don't expect yet (predicting the sun will rise tomorrow is predicting some we already expect).

Theists are incapable of doing that and try to pretend that if a fact is consistent with a model it's as good as if the model predicted it.
Which is not the case at all.

[AgnosticBoy]

I opted out of doing a point-by-point reply to your last post. It was exhaustive and a good read.

Instead, I'll respond to the part that addressed my view the most. Then we can go from there.

2. No, there are no good reasons to doubt the physical nature of consciousness. What else is there?

Non-physicalists argue that conscious experience has properties that cannot be reduced to physical properties. They point to the subjective nature of consciousness, which cannot be directly observed or measured by others, and argue that it requires a non-physical or spiritual explanation. They also argue that the complexity of conscious experience cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone. Which is to say, they are arguing from the gaps in our knowledge ("Can't be observed or measured" Who says it can't be? Maybe not at the moment, but it's not right to say it will never be measured. Meanwhile, Physicalists are showing how we are able to measure much of our brain activity and it's relation to consciousness.)

Non-Physicalist are like pre-Darwin/pre-dna biologists claiming "we can't know how all these species arrived! We'll never be able to know, deep down, how each species get their particular shape and size!". Then Darwin, and later, dna science does exactly that.

We will soon be able to measure our brain activity with regard to subjective experiences, consciousness, etc. Be patient.

Not only do I believe that conscious experience has not been reduced to physical properties, but I also think the characteristics of conscious experience speak for itself. In other words, it appears nonphysical just based on description - based on what it is or involves (as opposed to explanation, how or why it is that way). Earlier in your post you mentioned that atheists go by scientific evidence to back up their claims, but on this topic, I find that many tend to get ahead of science by presuming that the conventional materialistic explanation will be proven right; "it's just a matter of time" so they say.

For all I know, better measurement will also enable scientists to detect consciousness without the brain. I think we're getting closer to that, since we're getting better at bringing people back from impending death, and people are able to recount their experiences during that time (i.e. NDEs). Also, we're getting better at detecting consciousness in those with impaired brain function. So perhaps our inability to measure consciousness when there's little to no brain function is just a matter of limitations on our technology and know-how, that we will eventually overcome. It's just a matter of time!

Moreover, recent research has shown that certain patterns of neural activity in the brain can predict conscious experience with remarkable accuracy. For example, a study by Kamitani and Tong (2005) showed that it was possible to predict with 75% accuracy which of two images a person was looking at based solely on their patterns of brain activity. This suggests that conscious experience can be directly linked to specific patterns of neural activity in the brain.

Let me know when they are able to observe such experiences directly, instead of relying on a data pool of associations to infer from.