Consciousness and the Soul

[RedJamaX]

The level has no bearing on the problem one way or another

In that case, you are a conscious being as long as you have sensory receptors which allow you process at least one of the 5 senses... touch, taste, sight, sound, or smell. Even if they are only imagined.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I am defining physicalism as the belief that all things that are truly real are physical in nature. That is they are composed of some form of matter/energy. Did you have a different definition in mind?

Not different, just more. The basis for the philosophical objections to physicalism, at least those based on the philosophy of mind, tend to "show" that it must fail by first defining it as you have and then adding reductionism (the belief that any properties of any physical system are entirely explainable by the properties that govern its constituent parts). Only with such arguments does consciousness pose a potential problem for physicalism. The problem is that this is not physicalism. Physicalism generally holds that the properties of a system are logical consequences of the dynamics of the constituent parts but are not necessarily wholly determined by these. Non-reductive physicalism goes further. Physicalism tells us that we can explain, for example, the possible configuration states of crystalline structures. But how these are formed involves emergence. The final configuration state is the product of self-organization and is not in general predictable, just explainable. Non-reductive physicalism holds that there are self-organized systems which are not explainable because their capacity to self-organize (usually) does not violate any laws of physics but does involve autonomous determinism (the system cannot be explained by physics because part of the laws that govern its dynamics are self-produced). There is nothing about consciousness we know of that makes it particularly incompatible with certain types of physicalism.

Based on the definition I gave above what physical evidence is there of their existence? What physical substance are they composed of?

They are composed of patterns of synaptic signals. The physical evidence is based on the unique yet related ways in which hemodynamic activity in the brain correlates with conscious experiences across subjects. No two people will have the same patterns. But they will tend to have similar. The brain is unbelievably interconnected and plastic. It's possibly the most complex system in the universe. It's ability to self-determine is unrivaled.

We know our own minds exist because we experience them. Not because there is any objective evidence they exist.

How do we experience our minds?

Well I think ants are conscious as individuals. Why would you think they are not?

For one thing, there's what I quoted: put a hundred eciton ants on some surface or in some environment and they will run around in circles until they die. That's it. They will never do anything else. However, if you let a hive form, although it will not initially be capable of much of anything once it obtains extremely large numbers it starts behaving like a single organism. The reason ants are the best example (bees and other swarming insects are good to) is because unlike flocks or herds or packs of animals, where each animal has some ability to act as an individual, ants have no brains or anything close. They are extremely simple and utterly incapable of doing anything but dying on there own. Even with a hundred other ants, they'll just die. We can precisely reproduce ant behavior using algorithms. Swarm intelligence, ant colony optimization, etc., are all algorithms based on the behavior of swarm animals like ants. We can model precisely ant behavior and abilities on a computer and use it to do far more than ants are capable of. We've become very good at getting computers to learn procedurally the way that simple animals such as sea slugs, fish, ants, bees, and basically every animal with a CNS but no cortex learn. That's because mindless symbol processing enables us to make computers store the kinds of patterns necessary to reproduce the way that such animals "minds" work: mindlessly. Such animals learn entirely reflexively, not consciously. Semantic or conceptual processing is an entirely different ballgame.

That their individual minds form a collective mind doesn't change that. This is true of all social animals, humans included.

Humans do not form hive minds. The more complex the animal, the less this is possible. Wolves are pack animals. They are utterly incapable of they kind of coordinated activity that ants are. That's because each wolf is too intelligent. It's capable of understanding concepts (just like dogs, who can associate words like "food" or "treat" with times, places, and notions of edible things that are readily extended to novel instances). Humans are not even capable of the kinds of social organization we see in wolves. They are too independent.

Yes, so? I am saying there is no mechanism to explain how electrochemical reactions in the brain produce the conscious sensation of color.

There is no mechanism to explain how electrochemical reactions in the brain produce non-conscious sensations or dynamics, such as the physical and automatic physiology of the fear response (e.g., increased heart rate, tunnel vision, loss of fine motor control, etc.). We have basic, largely informal methods to explain both, but things like the placebo effect, which are necessarily non-conscious, are beyond our grasp to model or explain other than using the same kind of models we have to understand consciousness. We know how certain parts of the brain are capable of coordinating and organizing input from sensorimotor regions and encoding conceptual content (from episodic memories to at least part of the abstract information of what we call language). We know so much about how the visual system represents/encodes color that we have built visual systems capable of doing this (see e.g., Rasche, C. (2005). The making of a neuromorphic visual system. Berlin: Springer. & Petrou, M. (2008). Next generation artificial vision systems: reverse engineering the human visual system. Artech House.). We can't experience what neuromorphic/brain-based robots experience when they discriminate between colors or shapes. The more realistic the model, the more complex it is and the less we know about how it works or how it outputs the answers it does regarding what it "sees". But as we can create artificial intelligent systems which are capable of doing what animals with very simple brains and/or simple visual systems do, there's no reason to think that the "mind" must be nonphysical.

 

[RedJamaX]

Yes, so? I am saying there is no mechanism to explain how electrochemical reactions in the brain produce the conscious sensation of color.

A more correct statement would be that we currently do not have an understanding of that process. Saying "there is no mechanism" allows you to elude your point of consciousness being supernatural via your favorite argument.

 

[nazz]

A more correct statement would be that we currently do not have an understanding of that process. Saying "there is no mechanism" allows you to elude your point of consciousness being supernatural via your favorite argument.

Both statements are equally correct. And I never used the word "supernatural".

 

[nazz]

In that case, you are a conscious being as long as you have sensory receptors which allow you process at least one of the 5 senses... touch, taste, sight, sound, or smell. Even if they are only imagined.

Yes, I would agree with that

 

[nazz]

Not different, just more. The basis for the philosophical objections to physicalism, at least those based on the philosophy of mind, tend to "show" that it must fail by first defining it as you have and then adding reductionism (the belief that any properties of any physical system are entirely explainable by the properties that govern its constituent parts). Only with such arguments does consciousness pose a potential problem for physicalism. The problem is that this is not physicalism.

So you say but I think if nothing more it is a form of physicalism. See this:

Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

where the author indicates physicalism and materialism are equivalent. However I am willing to abide by any definition you supply for the sake of this discussion.

Physicalism generally holds that the properties of a system are logical consequences of the dynamics of the constituent parts but are not necessarily wholly determined by these.

Well if they are not determining the properties then what is?

Non-reductive physicalism goes further. Physicalism tells us that we can explain, for example, the possible configuration states of crystalline structures. But how these are formed involves emergence.

Ah, emergence again. I stated above that emergence is still physical (I guess you would agree according to your definition). But, other than your claim regarding consciousness, can you give me another example of some type of emergence that cannot be explained in purely physical ways?

The final configuration state is the product of self-organization and is not in general predictable, just explainable. Non-reductive physicalism holds that there are self-organized systems which are not explainable because their capacity to self-organize (usually) does not violate any laws of physics but does involve autonomous determinism (the system cannot be explained by physics because part of the laws that govern its dynamics are self-produced). There is nothing about consciousness we know of that makes it particularly incompatible with certain types of physicalism.

But exactly is doing the "self-producing"? Is it physical or not?

They are composed of patterns of synaptic signals.

No, they are not. That is like saying Beethoven's 9th Symphony is nothing more than a musical score notated on paper. Are those two related? Certainly. But in order to actually hear the symphony the notation must be translated. And it is the lack of an identifiable physical translator which vitiates the notion that consciousness is (only) a physical process.

The physical evidence is based on the unique yet not related ways in which hemodynamic activity in the brain correlates with conscious experiences across subjects. No two people will have the same patterns. But they will tend to have similar. The brain is unbelievably interconnected and plastic. It's possibly the most complex system in the universe. It's ability to self-determine is unrivaled.

No one is denying there is a correlation. But again in the same way a musical score is correlated to an audible symphony. Or an electronic signal running through a cable is correlated to a program watched on a television set. But the problem with consciousness is that unlike those two examples we cannot explain the translation process in a physical manner.

How do we experience our minds?

I think the fact you are asking that indicates you have some other definition of mind in mind. In this case I am using "mind" as a synonym for consciousness.

For one thing, there's what I quoted: put a hundred eciton ants on some surface or in some environment and they will run around in circles until they die. That's it. They will never do anything else.

Yes, fine. But that does not mean they are not conscious.

However, if you let a hive form, although it will not initially be capable of much of anything once it obtains extremely large numbers it starts behaving like a single organism. The reason ants are the best example (bees and other swarming insects are good to) is because unlike flocks or herds or packs of animals, where each animal has some ability to act as an individual, ants have no brains or anything close.

Um, this is news to me. Because I was under the impression that insects had brains (albeit very primitive ones) composed of very few neurons (compared with other species)

They are extremely simple and utterly incapable of doing anything but dying on there own. Even with a hundred other hands, they'll just die.

Are you claiming they have no experience of their own perception via their sense organs? On what basis would you make that claim?

Humans do not form hive minds.

They can and do. That is what a mob is. But that is not really what I was referring to when I spoke of a collective consciousness which is based on shared information. It can be much more subtle than that.

The more complex the animal, the less this is possible. Wolves are pack animals. They are utterly incapable of they kind of coordinated activity that ants are. That's because each wolf is too intelligent. It's capable of understanding concepts (just like dogs, who can associate words like "food" or "treat" with times, places, and notions of edible things that are readily extended to novel instances). Humans are not even capable of the kinds of social organization we see in wolves. They are too independent.

Again it is a more subtle thing. In human cultures there is such a thing as memes for example that can affect human behavior in powerful ways.

There is no mechanism to explain how electrochemical reactions in the brain produce non-conscious sensations or dynamics, such as the physical and automatic physiology of the fear response (e.g., increased heart rate, tunnel vision, loss of fine motor control, etc.)

But as Chalmers would state it that is still an "easy problem". Something we will no doubt get a handle on in the future. It is distinct from the "hard problem" of consciousness which as Chalmers and I both believe will never be solved by the physical sciences.

But as we can create artificial intelligent systems which are capable of doing what animals with very simple brains and/or simple visual systems do, there's no reason to think that the "mind" must be nonphysical.

But such inventions may not be conscious but just examples of a Philosophical zombie

 

[kalyan]

Soul has no death and is always conscious, however if you believe soul has no death , you have to accept the concept of rebirth may it be a human or an animal

 

[kalyan]

I'm going with this one. You can find as many links as you want on this huge subject. This belief is the basis of Hinduism and so-called western 'new-age' beliefs.



The soul is the consciousness in physical forms (bodies). The body is just a vehicle to allow the soul to operate in the physical plane/realm.

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[LegionOnomaMoi]

But, other than your claim regarding consciousness, can you give me another example of some type of emergence that cannot be explained in purely physical ways?

It's not that consciousness can't be explained in purely physical ways (italics in original; emphases added):
"Granular media are neither completely solid-like nor completely liquid-like in their behaviour – they pack like solids, but flow like liquids. They can, like liquids, take the shape of their containing vessel, but unlike liquids, they can also adopt a variety of shapes when they are freestanding. This leads to the everyday phenomenon of the angle of repose, which is the angle that a sandpile makes with the horizontal...in the intervening range of angles, the sandpile manifests bistability, in that it can either be at rest or have flowing down it. This avalanche flow is such that all the motion occurs in a relatively narrow boundary layer, so that granular flow is strongly non-Newtonian...
The athermal nature of granular media implies in turn that granular configurations cannot relax spontaneously in the absence of external perturbations. This leads typically to the generation of a large number of metastable configurations; it also results in hysteresis, since the sandpile carries forward a memory of its initial conditions. Bistability at the angle of repose is yet another consequence, since the manner in which the sandpile was formed determines whether avalanche motion will, or will not, occur at a given angle.
The above taken together, suggest that sandpiles show complexity; that is, the occurrence and relative stability of a large number of metastable configurational states govern their behaviour."
Mehta, A. (2007). Granular physics. Cambridge University Press.

The final configuration is logically consistent with physical laws but is not itself a consequence of only laws of physics. To a certain extent, sandpiles (like crystalline structures) self-determine their configuration states when they are subjected to external pressures, temperatures, etc., that force them to reconfigure.

Is it physical or not?

It is physical, although the reason we speak of physicalism instead of materialism has a good deal to do with the nature of physics, which has radically changed over the last hundred years. Determinism is pretty much out the window, reductionism is widely considered ultimately doomed, and nonlocality is taken to be empirically demonstrated. This makes causality a whole different problem than it was under the Newtonian paradigm.

No, they are not.

And you know this because?

That is like saying Beethoven's 9th Symphony is nothing more than a musical score notated on paper.

Beethoven's 9th symphony is a concept. We associate notes on a paper, certain sounds, a particular individual (Beethoven), ordinal data (the 9th), a particular type of audio input (symphony), etc., with this concept. All of this is represented by distributed yet connected and constantly active patterns of neural firing in multiple cortical and sensorimotor regions of your brain.

And it is the lack of an identifiable physical translator

We've identified a physical translator. We've increased our understanding of how it works a great deal. But we cannot fully understand it. This simply means that our models will always have certain limitations. Hence the field of systems biology, which treat living systems holistically in order to under stand functional processes that cannot be modeled in ways consistent with physics. This is done with the brain as well. Studies like
Kanter, I., Kopelowitz, E., Vardi, R., Zigzag, M., Kinzel, W., Abeles, M., & Cohen, D. (2011). Nonlocal mechanism for cluster synchronization in neural circuits. EPL (Europhysics Letters), 93(6), 66001.

use combinatorial mathematics and topology to simulate the connectivity and clustering of neural connections that appears to underlie conscious perceptual and conceptual experiences/processing. The connectivity in the model cannot be physically instantiated by a computer (at least not yet).

It is one thing to say we don't know how consciousness works. It is another to say we know it must be nonphysical. There is absolutely no reason to conclude that it must be. It's simply a "god-in-the-gaps" argument.

we cannot explain the translation process in a physical manner.

You keep saying this. But so what? We can't explain solids:
"The most fundamental question that one might be expected to answer is ‘‘why are there solids?’’ That is, if we were given a large number of atoms of copper, why should they form themselves into the regular array that we know as a crystal of metallic copper? Why should they not form an irregular structure like glass, or a superfluid liquid like helium?
We are ill-equipped to answer these questions in any other than a qualitative way, for they demand the solution of the many-body problem in one of its most difficult forms. We should have to consider the interactions between large numbers of identical copper nuclei – identical, that is, if we were fortunate enough to have an isotopically pure specimen – and even larger numbers of electrons. We should be able to omit neither the spins of the electrons nor the electric quadrupole moments of the nuclei. Provided we treated the problem with the methods of relativistic quantum mechanics, we could hope that the solution we obtained would be a good picture of the physical reality, and that we should then be able to predict all the properties of copper.
But, of course, such a task is impossible. Methods have not yet been developed that can find even the lowest-lying exact energy level of such a complex system. The best that we can do at present is to guess at the form the states will take, and then to try and calculate their energy."
Taylor, P. L., & Heinonen, O. (2002). A quantum approach to condensed matter physics. Cambridge University Press.

If we can't yet understand how physical solids "work", why should we decide that consciousness must be non-physical?

you have some other definition of mind in mind.

No, actually, it's an illustration of one of the real problems. Science, from Galileo onwards, increasingly developed formal approach to modelling physical phenomena. That is, everything was treated mathematically. That's how determinism crept in the backdoor. Mathematical models are either simplifications or are deterministic. They are computable. They are reductionist. They have to be. That's what formal definitions require. As we got better and better and developing formal models, we sort of assumed that everything could be treated this way. But with consciousness we cannot simply turn to a formal model and say "see! that's how it works"

That's why I asked. Because you will face the same problems explaining how we experience anything or what it means to be conscious or to have a mind that is behind our current inability to offer working models.

But that does not mean they are not conscious.

If they are, then so are our computers.

On what basis would you make that claim?

On knowing how sense organs work. Most of the sensory experiences you have are not conscious. When the doctor taps your knee to test your reflexes, you can't control your reaction despite the fact that your brain is controlling this. When you strip away the parts of your nervous system that correlate with conscious experience, you don't have consciousness. Ants are no more conscious of anything they do then you are of neural communication controlling your kidneys, liver, or pupils.

They can and do. That is what a mob is.

Mobs do not act cooperatively, systematically, and thoroughly organized such that nearly instantaneous cooperative actions among all members (such as simultaneous changes in direction in fish schools) are possible. They are defined by a breakdown in order, communication, cooperation, etc. That's why people are trampled in mobs.

I gave the example of ants to show how a "mind" can work by physical means we understand. The general emergent activities of a colony can be simulated by a computer, and the algorithms used can even produce more complex behavior, but the actual actions of a colony can't be reduced like this. That's because, while we have found ways to simplify what ants do to reproduce their dynamics, actually having a model that will exactly predict what a colony will do is impossible. The level of coordination is a product of external stimuli and a vast number of local interactions that produce cooperative behavior like that of a single organism.

It is distinct from the "hard problem" of consciousness which as Chalmers and I both believe will never be solved by the physical sciences.

The reason I pointed out the problematic definitions with physicalism given by philosophers rather than, say, physicists is that it makes the physical sciences into something they are not.

But such inventions may not be conscious but just examples of a Philosophical zombie

As far as though experiments go, philosophical zombies are about the worst there are. And I am a fan of Searle's Chinese Room, unlike the reductive cognitive neuroscientists out there.

 

[nazz]

It's not that consciousness can't be explained in purely physical ways (italics in original; emphases added):
"Granular media are neither completely solid-like nor completely liquid-like in their behaviour – they pack like solids, but flow like liquids. They can, like liquids, take the shape of their containing vessel, but unlike liquids, they can also adopt a variety of shapes when they are freestanding. This leads to the everyday phenomenon of the angle of repose, which is the angle that a sandpile makes with the horizontal...in the intervening range of angles, the sandpile manifests bistability, in that it can either be at rest or have flowing down it. This avalanche flow is such that all the motion occurs in a relatively narrow boundary layer, so that granular flow is strongly non-Newtonian...
The athermal nature of granular media implies in turn that granular configurations cannot relax spontaneously in the absence of external perturbations. This leads typically to the generation of a large number of metastable configurations; it also results in hysteresis, since the sandpile carries forward a memory of its initial conditions. Bistability at the angle of repose is yet another consequence, since the manner in which the sandpile was formed determines whether avalanche motion will, or will not, occur at a given angle.
The above taken together, suggest that sandpiles show complexity; that is, the occurrence and relative stability of a large number of metastable configurational states govern their behaviour."
Mehta, A. (2007). Granular physics. Cambridge University Press.

The final configuration is logically consistent with physical laws but is not itself a consequence of only laws of physics. To a certain extent, sandpiles (like crystalline structures) self-determine their configuration states when they are subjected to external pressures, temperatures, etc., that force them to reconfigure.

There you have it. Right there in the part I highlighted. It's not that sand piles or snow packs do what they do randomly, or by means of some mysterious force, much less that they are "self determining" in some conscious way. It's just that their activity is complex and unpredicatable (just like the weather to some degree but no one would suggest weather phenomena is not physically determined).

It is physical, although the reason we speak of physicalism instead of materialism has a good deal to do with the nature of physics, which has radically changed over the last hundred years. Determinism is pretty much out the window, reductionism is widely considered ultimately doomed, and nonlocality is taken to be empirically demonstrated. This makes causality a whole different problem than it was under the Newtonian paradigm.

OK, no argument

And you know this because?

Personal experience. My inner experience of consciousness in no way even remotely resembles synaptic signals. Anymore than the experience of hearing a symphony of Beethoven resembles musical notation on paper. Or a tv program resembles an electronic signal coursing through a cable. And this is what the notion of qualia is all about.

Beethoven's 9th symphony is a concept. We associate notes on a paper, certain sounds, a particular individual (Beethoven), ordinal data (the 9th), a particular type of audio input (symphony), etc., with this concept. All of this is represented by distributed yet connected and constantly active patterns of neural firing in multiple cortical and sensorimotor regions of your brain.

No, it is more than just a concept. It is something which can be experienced.

We've identified a physical translator. We've increased our understanding of how it works a great deal. But we cannot fully understand it. This simply means that our models will always have certain limitations. Hence the field of systems biology, which treat living systems holistically in order to under stand functional processes that cannot be modeled in ways consistent with physics. This is done with the brain as well. Studies like
Kanter, I., Kopelowitz, E., Vardi, R., Zigzag, M., Kinzel, W., Abeles, M., & Cohen, D. (2011). Nonlocal mechanism for cluster synchronization in neural circuits. EPL (Europhysics Letters), 93(6), 66001.

I'm afraid that is way over my head. Too much technical jargon. If you are so inclined you could summarize it for me in a dumbed-down manner. But I can tell you right now it won't change my position. I don't need to understand it to know there is no physical translation process going on in the brain. If that were the case we could objectively view the contents of the consciousness of someone else. And that necessarily invokes a homunculus.

It is one thing to say we don't know how consciousness works. It is another to say we know it must be nonphysical. There is absolutely no reason to conclude that it must be. It's simply a "god-in-the-gaps" argument.

Not at all. If there were a physical translation process going on we would already know about it as I stated above. It just does not exist.

You keep saying this. But so what? We can't explain solids...If we can't yet understand how physical solids "work", why should we decide that consciousness must be non-physical?

Again it is a matter of being able to solve easy problems (with more knowledge and experimentation) and hard problems (in the case of consciousness an impossible problem)

No, actually, it's an illustration of one of the real problems. Science, from Galileo onwards, increasingly developed formal approach to modelling physical phenomena. That is, everything was treated mathematically. That's how determinism crept in the backdoor. Mathematical models are either simplifications or are deterministic. They are computable. They are reductionist. They have to be. That's what formal definitions require. As we got better and better and developing formal models, we sort of assumed that everything could be treated this way. But with consciousness we cannot simply turn to a formal model and say "see! that's how it works"

Well, I can definitely agree with that!

That's why I asked. Because you will face the same problems explaining how we experience anything or what it means to be conscious or to have a mind that is behind our current inability to offer working models.

The most anyone can say about consciousness is that it is a relationship between something which is conscious and that which it is conscious of. Beyond that there is really no explanation.

If they are, then so are our computers.

Not necessarily. We can't say for certain that anything else is conscious including our fellow human beings. But there is simply no good reason to think they are not. If something has a brain and sense organs. No matter how primitive they may be. Anyway, on ant brains I offer this:

http://antcolonies.net/brain.html

On knowing how sense organs work. Most of the sensory experiences you have are not conscious. When the doctor taps your knee to test your reflexes, you can't control your reaction despite the fact that your brain is controlling this.

But I CAN feel it. I have a conscious awareness of that feeling.

When you strip away the parts of your nervous system that correlate with conscious experience, you don't have consciousness. Ants are no more conscious of anything they do then you are of neural communication controlling your kidneys, liver, or pupils.

Again I see no reason to assume that is the case. But it is really not all that important to this discussion.

Mobs do not act cooperatively, systematically, and thoroughly organized such that nearly instantaneous cooperative actions among all members (such as simultaneous changes in direction in fish schools) are possible. They are defined by a breakdown in order, communication, cooperation, etc. That's why people are trampled in mobs.

You are speaking more about a stampede. A mob can most certainly act in a cooperative, systematic, and thoroughly organized fashion.

I gave the example of ants to show how a "mind" can work by physical means we understand. The general emergent activities of a colony can be simulated by a computer, and the algorithms used can even produce more complex behavior, but the actual actions of a colony can't be reduced like this. That's because, while we have found ways to simplify what ants do to reproduce their dynamics, actually having a model that will exactly predict what a colony will do is impossible. The level of coordination is a product of external stimuli and a vast number of local interactions that produce cooperative behavior like that of a single organism.

Well I am not disputing any of that.

***
I just need to say this. I have previously sworn off debating this matter because it has always been unproductive leading to an impasse. People either get that consciousness is non-physical or they don't and no amount o argumentation will sway them. But I'm sticking with this for the moment because you seem like a highly intelligent person and more importantly also open minded. So we will see how it goes.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

There you have it. Right there in the part I highlighted. It's not that sand piles or snow packs do what they do randomly, or by means of some mysterious force, much less that they are "self determining" in some conscious way. It's just that their activity is complex and unpredicatable (just like the weather to some degree but no one would suggest weather phenomena is not physically determined).

The mind is partially determined by external forces. Hence all of that stuff I said about concepts and language structuring the mind in some other thread. That's without getting into genetic predispositions, upbringing, random events, etc. We are influenced by external forces but not determined entirely by them. So are sandpiles.

My inner experience of consciousness in no way even remotely resembles synaptic signals

When the connections between hemispheres are severed, such that a subject can see information but not process it, they will consciously make up a reason that is inconsistent with what they are shown. So even though they are seeing e.g., a picture of a face, and they say face, they don't know why they do and they make-up a reason to describe the perceptual stimuli they experienced but did not experience consciously. How did they know what to say? Because the visual system still worked, and still fed information through V1 (or V2), but the connections between hemispheres didn't allow for communications between neural regions necessary for conscious processing of the stimuli. They saw a face, but didn't know they saw it, and so made up a reason for their response.

And this is what the notion of qualia is all about.

And we can sever connections in the brain such that you will hear or see stimuli, be capable of answering questions about it, but not know why you are. We can stimulate regions of the brain and you may see things, remember things, or even move depending upon the regions we stimulate. We can force you to experience qualia simply by doing things to your brain.

No, it is more than just a concept. It is something which can be experienced.

We only experience things consciously that are filtered through a conceptual network. I'm not disputing that it's an experience.

But I can tell you right now it won't change my position

Didn't you start an entire thread about dogmatic positions? I have changed my position on this issue more than once. Granted, when one works with fMRI machines and stuff like that, one will tend to have the kind of experiences that make it easier to change one's mind about, well, the mind. To a lesser extent this is true of reading the research in the field (which, I believe, should include the philosophical literature). And there's the fact that I was never actually certain and remain uncertain. I set out a few years ago to demonstrate (at least to myself) that quantum consciousness was impossible only to discover that this can't be done as there are too many conflicts in physics about what quantum mechanics is to say that it can't be involved in consciousness. There's nothing like studying modern physics to undermine certainty in everything and anything. But it seems kind of (for lack of a better word) dogmatic to assert that whatever I say your position will not change.

If that were the case we could objectively view the contents of the consciousness of someone else

Why? And why is this necessarily impossible?

And that necessarily invokes a homunculus.

I'm going to assume you aren't talking about the depiction(s) of the somatic map or sensorimotor maps and not the diminutive form of the Latin word for person.

If there were a physical translation process going on we would already know about it as I stated above

Yes, but you didn't really give any reason for why we would know about it. We can't model a cell. Arguably, they must have non-computable models (they are "closed to [under] efficient causation", according to proofs laid out first by Rosen, a founder of systems biology, and then by others, esp. AH Louie). Why should we "already know" about the ways in which the translation process of the most complicated system known to exist works so fully that we can decode it? Why, if it is physical, should we expect this to be the case? As I said, we can't explain how physical structures form into the shapes they do. You wish to say that despite our fundamental difficulties dealing with complex systems and especially living systems, from cells to your circulatory system, and despite the difficulties that exist just determining how sandpiles form or why solids have the possible configuration states they do, we should be able to decode the most complex system in existence so fully that we are able to understand it better than sandpiles. Based upon what?

Again it is a matter of being able to solve easy problems (with more knowledge and experimentation) and hard problems (in the case of consciousness an impossible problem)

I realize you've said this. I'm trying to understand why it is true. I know why Chalmers thinks so and I know why I disagree. Same with Nagel, Crane, and (on the other side) Dennett (and those who deny we are conscious). But all I understand so far is that you seem to think that were it possible to understand consciousness, we should be able to not merely model it fully nor even have complete access to the contents of another's conscious experience but experience it as that individual experiences it. The reason this is not possible (probably, and certainly in the sense that we can experience it while retaining our self-hood) has nothing to do with consciousness being non-physical. It is because were we able to decode the conscious experience of another, they only way we ourselves could "experience" it (even if we plugged it into our brains such that we basically downloaded their conscious experiences) is with our own minds, so it would (probably) necessarily be filtered through our own conscious experiences. That doesn't mean the content isn't there, decoded, it just means that we have limited access to it.
This is true of signals in general. Your computer stores and processes data using voltage states of "bits". You can't read these. The webpage you see is formed by what can be described as lots of 0's and 1's and logic gates, yet if you were shown these you would not "see" a webpage in the data. You would see lots of 0's and 1's. A computer is required to interpret the data for you and depict it as this webpage. Same with audio/visual recordings. Something takes the data and makes it available to you in a way you can access. There is nothing that says we can't do this with brains.

But there is simply no good reason to think they are not

I agree. It's just that I would say this about most life on the planet. There are very few life forms that have cortices. Even a brain is not enough for a mind.

If something has a brain and sense organs. No matter how primitive they may be.

There is no reason to think this and plenty to think it is not the case. We can create more sophisticated sense organs and systems than is possible for ants, bees, fish, etc. Sensory organs simply integrate information in ways that we do have formal models for. But this is procedural learning, not conscious learning. And that's what the vast majority of living systems are capable of: reflexively reacting to stimuli like a computer can.

But I CAN feel it. I have a conscious awareness of that feeling.

You cannot feel the interactions that go on between neurons in your kidneys and liver and your large nervous system.

A mob can most certainly act in a cooperative, systematic, and thoroughly organized fashion.

For example? I showed you a picture of the kind of organization ants are capable of. Perhaps this is not relevant enough, except that it seems you don't believe either side of the purpose of my example (the unique nature of the hive mind and the lack of any individual ant mind even comparable to the kind of non-conscious hive mind). It is a rudimentary way in which individual elements can act as a single organism that is more than the sum of its parts in much the same way neurons create a mind. The hive or colony does things that emerge from the constituent parts but are not reducible to them. This has nothing to do with the hive mind being non-physical, nor is this hive mind comparable to the kinds of coordination people are (unless you have examples to the contrary other than a generic description which doesn't fit my understanding of small group dynamics gleaned from research in social psychology, in which case I'd be happy to hear about these).

But I'm sticking with this for the moment because you seem like a highly intelligent person and more importantly also open minded. So we will see how it goes.

Thank you (although I would argue against the highly intelligent part; knowledge vs. intelligence and all that). I'm not sure that I'm open-minded rather than that I don't know what to believe or what is true much of the time, which is related to knowing a lot as I want to know things but there are always so many sides and nuances and complexities (and there are plenty of people here who would say I'm a close-minded arrogant *******). But I appreciate your willingness to engage.

 

[nazz]

The mind is partially determined by external forces. Hence all of that stuff I said about concepts and language structuring the mind in some other thread. That's without getting into genetic predispositions, upbringing, random events, etc. We are influenced by external forces but not determined entirely by them. So are sandpiles.

But we have (limited) free will. Sand piles do not.

When the connections between hemispheres are severed, such that a subject can see information but not process it, they will consciously make up a reason that is inconsistent with what they are shown. So even though they are seeing e.g., a picture of a face, and they say face, they don't know why they do and they make-up a reason to describe the perceptual stimuli they experienced but did not experience consciously. How did they know what to say? Because the visual system still worked, and still fed information through V1 (or V2), but the connections between hemispheres didn't allow for communications between neural regions necessary for conscious processing of the stimuli. They saw a face, but didn't know they saw it, and so made up a reason for their response.

But this has nothing to do with the non-physicality of consciousness. It may very well have to do with the contents of our conscience experience, with how that is formed. But that is a different subject. In either case what I said is true: the experience of qualia do not resemble synaptic signals in the brain whatsoever.

And we can sever connections in the brain such that you will hear or see stimuli, be capable of answering questions about it, but not know why you are. We can stimulate regions of the brain and you may see things, remember things, or even move depending upon the regions we stimulate. We can force you to experience qualia simply by doing things to your brain.

Right, but that again is completely beside the point. All it points to is a possible causal relationship between brain stimulation and conscious experience. That does not make conscious experience in any way resemble brain stimulation.

We only experience things consciously that are filtered through a conceptual network. I'm not disputing that it's an experience.

Okay

Didn't you start an entire thread about dogmatic positions?

Yes, but I am not being dogmatic. Dogma is unquestioned belief. This is a case of something being self evident. As self evident as my own existence or the fact that circles cannot be square.

I have changed my position on this issue more than once. Granted, when one works with fMRI machines and stuff like that, one will tend to have the kind of experiences that make it easier to change one's mind about, well, the mind. To a lesser extent this is true of reading the research in the field (which, I believe, should include the philosophical literature). And there's the fact that I was never actually certain and remain uncertain. I set out a few years ago to demonstrate (at least to myself) that quantum consciousness was impossible only to discover that this can't be done as there are too many conflicts in physics about what quantum mechanics is to say that it can't be involved in consciousness. There's nothing like studying modern physics to undermine certainty in everything and anything. But it seems kind of (for lack of a better word) dogmatic to assert that whatever I say your position will not change.

I've had this discussion more times than I can remember now. At this point pretty much anything anyone could bring up has already been brought up and examined by me. But okay it's possible you could surprise me with something totally new.

Why? And why is this necessarily impossible?

In the same way I could come to your house and watch your tv instead of my own. That is because your tv, like mine, has a translating device that takes a raw electronic signal and converts it into sights and sounds. If such a device were part of the brain's apparatus it would be apparent. I could open up your skull and watch a tiny movie of your experience. Voila, the Cartesian Theater that physicalists love to pillory. It is my contention that the dualistic view does not lead there but the monistic physicalist position inevitably does.

I'm going to assume you aren't talking about the depiction(s) of the somatic map or sensorimotor maps and not the diminutive form of the Latin word for person.

I'm talking about the philosophical homunculus, ie, the little man in the Cartesian Theater.

Yes, but you didn't really give any reason for why we would know about it. We can't model a cell. Arguably, they must have non-computable models (they are "closed to [under] efficient causation", according to proofs laid out first by Rosen, a founder of systems biology, and then by others, esp. AH Louie). Why should we "already know" about the ways in which the translation process of the most complicated system known to exist works so fully that we can decode it? Why, if it is physical, should we expect this to be the case? As I said, we can't explain how physical structures form into the shapes they do. You wish to say that despite our fundamental difficulties dealing with complex systems and especially living systems, from cells to your circulatory system, and despite the difficulties that exist just determining how sandpiles form or why solids have the possible configuration states they do, we should be able to decode the most complex system in existence so fully that we are able to understand it better than sandpiles. Based upon what?

What I said above. Just as when we take apart a tv we can see the device that decodes the electronic signal fed into it.

I realize you've said this. I'm trying to understand why it is true. I know why Chalmers thinks so and I know why I disagree. Same with Nagel, Crane, and (on the other side) Dennett (and those who deny we are conscious). But all I understand so far is that you seem to think that were it possible to understand consciousness, we should be able to not merely model it fully nor even have complete access to the contents of another's conscious experience but experience it as that individual experiences it. The reason this is not possible (probably, and certainly in the sense that we can experience it while retaining our self-hood) has nothing to do with consciousness being non-physical. It is because were we able to decode the conscious experience of another, they only way we ourselves could "experience" it (even if we plugged it into our brains such that we basically downloaded their conscious experiences) is with our own minds, so it would (probably) necessarily be filtered through our own conscious experiences. That doesn't mean the content isn't there, decoded, it just means that we have limited access to it.

Yes, the content IS THERE but encoded. Perhaps in the future we will able to find a way to plug into someone's else's consciousness and view it like we would a movie. There are two ways we might do that. One would be to build a device that could actually decode the brains signals. Or if we could tap directly into using our own brains then we are back to what it is that is decoding the signal in that case. Just as in our own conscious experience.

This is true of signals in general. Your computer stores and processes data using voltage states of "bits". You can't read these. The webpage you see is formed by what can be described as lots of 0's and 1's and logic gates, yet if you were shown these you would not "see" a webpage in the data. You would see lots of 0's and 1's. A computer is required to interpret the data for you and depict it as this webpage.

Yes exactly! And it does so in a way similar to how a tv does it. It does it because we build that into our computer monitors! But no such device exists within the human brain.

Same with audio/visual recordings. Something takes the data and makes it available to you in a way you can access. There is nothing that says we can't do this with brains.

As I say someday we might. But that is not the point. The point is there is nothing in our physical brains that is performing this function so that we can consciously experience our brain's signals.

I agree. It's just that I would say this about most life on the planet. There are very few life forms that have cortices. Even a brain is not enough for a mind.

Again I am wondering if the term "mind" is confusing things. Ants have eyes. Are you saying there is no conscious perception of sight occuring in an ant's consciousness? And if so why not?

There is no reason to think this and plenty to think it is not the case. We can create more sophisticated sense organs and systems than is possible for ants, bees, fish, etc. Sensory organs simply integrate information in ways that we do have formal models for. But this is procedural learning, not conscious learning. And that's what the vast majority of living systems are capable of: reflexively reacting to stimuli like a computer can.

I think there are probably some organisms that do just that. Like jellyfish. But I just don't think ants and other insects are like that. Anyway, as I said, it's a tangential and unimportant point.

 

[nazz]

that last post was so long it exceeded the allowable character length. Here is the rest of my answer:

You cannot feel the interactions that go on between neurons in your kidneys and liver and your large nervous system.

That's right. And that fact also argues against a physicalist view of consciousness. Because not only is that the case but there is a large portion of the brain's activity I don't consciously experience. Despite the fact that neuronal interactions not unlike the ones supposedly responsible for my conscious experience are happening all the time. So why do only some of those supposedly lead to conscious experience?

For example?

For example a lynching of something like Krystalnacht. Organized purposeful action carried out by a mob.

I showed you a picture of the kind of organization ants are capable of. Perhaps this is not relevant enough, except that it seems you don't believe either side of the purpose of my example (the unique nature of the hive mind and the lack of any individual ant mind even comparable to the kind of non-conscious hive mind). It is a rudimentary way in which individual elements can act as a single organism that is more than the sum of its parts in much the same way neurons create a mind. The hive or colony does things that emerge from the constituent parts but are not reducible to them. This has nothing to do with the hive mind being non-physical

It's a poor analogy though. If it really were an apt analogy to individual neurons acting in concert in the brain that hive of ants would have a singular consciousness with an "I" at the center of it experiencing the whole thing. Quite bizarre and I'm sure not what you are suggesting!

Thank you (although I would argue against the highly intelligent part; knowledge vs. intelligence and all that).

You are just being modest Well you've impressed me, let's leave it at that.

I'm not sure that I'm open-minded rather than that I don't know what to believe or what is true much of the time, which is related to knowing a lot as I want to know things but there are always so many sides and nuances and complexities (and there are plenty of people here who would say I'm a close-minded arrogant *******). But I appreciate your willingness to engage.

No worries but I can't guarantee how long that will last. At a certain point in these discussions I tend to get frustrated it's not going anywhere. And each time that comes a little sooner than the time before.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

But we have (limited) free will. Sand piles do not.

I agree.

In either case what I said is true: the experience of qualia do not resemble synaptic signals in the brain whatsoever.

That's true. But then, the depictions you see on your computer do not resemble the code that makes them possible. The question is, if conscious experience is distinct from the neurophysiological properties of the brain, why is it that we can create conscious experiences like the sensory input of a face that isn't explained by the conscious observer as having been exposed to the visual stimuli of a face? Why, if consciousness is non-physical, do conscious people experience qualia (in the sense that they experience unique visual input interpreted by their minds) that is not conscious? Moreover, it is not only not conscious but the conscious perception is so bereft of conceptual content that the conscious mind makes up a reason for the sensory experiences it would have integrated as one unified experience were it not for the surgical separation between cortical regions?

That does not make conscious experience in any way resemble brain stimulation.

The question is how does conscious experience change so completely when the physical brain changes that non-conscious experiences are interpreted apart from conscious perceptual experiences even though it is these that make possible the conscious experiences. We can make a person experience visual stimuli unconsciously, and have that individual experience the result consciously. Yet because the experience of visual stimuli (quali) is unable to integrate in cortical and sensorimotor regions thanks to surgical disconnection, the conscious experience is distinct from would-be qualia.

I've had this discussion more times than I can remember now. At this point pretty much anything anyone could bring up has already been brought up and examined by me. But okay it's possible you could surprise me with something totally new.

Fair enough.

If such a device were part of the brain's apparatus it would be apparent.

Why? And with what technology?

It is my contention that the dualistic view does not lead there but the monistic physicalist position inevitably does.

Ok. Let's grant this. Why is it that we cannot even in principle do what you describe? We can't do many things now, and we couldn't do what we can now earlier. Why need it be that we should have uncovered the way to decode consciousness if there were a way?

I'm talking about the philosophical homunculus, ie, the little man in the Cartesian Theater.

Thank you. It's been a while since I'd read about this. Biases of sciences and all.

Yes, the content IS THERE but encoded. Perhaps in the future we will able to find a way to plug into someone's else's consciousness and view it like we would a movie. There are two ways we might do that. One would be to build a device that could actually decode the brains signals. Or if we could tap directly into using our own brains then we are back to what it is that is decoding the signal in that case. Just as in our own conscious experience.

And if we could decode conscious experiences, why must it necessarily be non-physical?

The point is there is nothing in our physical brains that is performing this function so that we can consciously experience our brain's signals.

Ok. But how do we distinguish between what our current knowledge is and what the limits of knowledge are? There are many things we don't know yet, but which are possible to know.

Again I am wondering if the term "mind" is confusing things.

Always. Alas, conceptual content is bound to do this.

Are you saying there is no conscious perception of sight occuring in an ant's consciousness? And if so why not?

I am absolutely saying no. And the reason is because we can simulate exactly what ants do. We have formal models for the ways in which they act as programs given certain environmental stimuli. We also know something about what is required for conscious experience. Ants lack all of this.

Anyway, as I said, it's a tangential and unimportant point.

Fair enough.

 

[nazz]

I agree.

That's true. But then, the depictions you see on your computer do not resemble the code that makes them possible.

That's right!

The question is, if conscious experience is distinct from the neurophysiological properties of the brain, why is it that we can create conscious experiences like the sensory input of a face that isn't explained by the conscious observer as having been exposed to the visual stimuli of a face? Why, if consciousness is non-physical, do conscious people experience qualia (in the sense that they experience unique visual input interpreted by their minds) that is not conscious? Moreover, it is not only not conscious but the conscious perception is so bereft of conceptual content that the conscious mind makes up a reason for the sensory experiences it would have integrated as one unified experience were it not for the surgical separation between cortical regions?

I think you are confusing two or three different questions:

Is consciousness physical?
Is consciousness affected by physical processes?
Is consciousness dependent on physical processes?

The answer to the first question is definitively no.

The answer to the second is it appears so though we cannot identify any method of causation. A connection between the physical and non-physical. So if this is the case then the method of causation must be non-physical itself. As a sidenote I think this is similar to what happens in quantum entanglement.

The answer to the third question is we simply don't know. But as I have suggested in this thread there is evidence to suggest the answer is no.

So above you are asking questions of the second type.

The question is how does conscious experience change so completely when the physical brain changes that non-conscious experiences are interpreted apart from conscious perceptual experiences even though it is these that make possible the conscious experiences. We can make a person experience visual stimuli unconsciously, and have that individual experience the result consciously. Yet because the experience of visual stimuli (quali) is unable to integrate in cortical and sensorimotor regions thanks to surgical disconnection, the conscious experience is distinct from would-be qualia.

Qualia are always part of conscience experience and vice versa. You can't speak of them as being distinct from one another.

Why? And with what technology?

To answer the second part first mere examination of the brain. I will try to illustrate what I mean by sticking with the analogy of a television set. I think you would agree that if we were to take apart a tv set we could identify what parts do what. Even if we were unfamiliar with the technology we could probably reverse engineer it.

Now let's imagine a scenario. We approach a building. On the outside of the building are a video camera and a speaker. We hear a voice come from the speaker who identifies and greets us. We now examine how this was done. We see that the camera is connected by a cable to a tv monitor and that the occupant of the building speaks through a microphone which we hear through the speaker outside the building. Very easy to understand. We could examine this in more detail if we wished to determine how the electronic signal coming from the camera is converted to sights and sounds on the monitor, etc.

Now if we apply this same scenario to a person it breaks down very quickly. A person has something like a camera in their head--their eyes. And they have something like a speaker--their mouth. And they have something like a cable connected to their camera--their optic nerve. But that's all. The end of the cable is severed and frayed. It dead ends. There is no tv monitor inside to convert the signal anyway. And no homunculus to watch it.

But it gets even weirder than that. Because rather than someone watching on the other end it appears the person is actually looking through the camera! Their experience is front of it, not behind it!

The point I'm making is that we have examined enough brains now and know enough about how they work to know there is nothing like a signal converter/video monitor inside of them. Everyone agrees with this and agrees to suggest it does invokes the Cartesian Theater.

But what physicalists (of the sort I originally identified) try to argue is that the signal in the cable is watching itself! Yet if someone suggested that the signal in a tv cable is able to watch reruns of I Love Lucy along with us they would be laughed to scorn! Or similarly if the CPU in our computers were following along consciously with this conversation!

Ok. Let's grant this. Why is it that we cannot even in principle do what you describe? We can't do many things now, and we couldn't do what we can now earlier. Why need it be that we should have uncovered the way to decode consciousness if there were a way?

Because we simply have no means to scientifically study the non-physical realm.

And if we could decode conscious experiences, why must it necessarily be non-physical?

Well I think I have explained this as well as I can at this point.

Ok. But how do we distinguish between what our current knowledge is and what the limits of knowledge are? There are many things we don't know yet, but which are possible to know.

Because we simply have no means to scientifically study the non-physical realm.

I'll stop there and answer the last part in another post. Also I hope you noticed I had to break up my answer in two parts the last time because of allowable character length.

 

[nazz]

Please see the first part of my reply above.

I am absolutely saying no. And the reason is because we can simulate exactly what ants do. We have formal models for the ways in which they act as programs given certain environmental stimuli. We also know something about what is required for conscious experience. Ants lack all of this.

OK, you seem to be arguing this from two facts. One that ants display this hive super-mentality and in isolation will walk in circles till they die. I don't think that is evidence they are not conscious but rather that their existence is purposeless outside of being part of a colony.

I think your second argument is that due to the fact that ants lack cortices they cannot experience consciousness? Perhaps you are right but I am curious as to how this is determined exactly. And where exactly is the dividing line between conscious and non-conscious animals?

But let's say you are right. This effectively makes ants real live philosophical zombies! And if so I would say this also argues against a physicalist view of consciousness. Because what is so magical about a cortex, in contrast to other brain parts, that would allow for consciousness?

 

[desideraht]

I didn't pick a definitive answer as I was not addressing that question with my post. I was showing the materialist explanation must be dramatically incomplete.

My answer. I have come (through evidence and study) to accept the eastern (Hindu) worldview on things. That our entire universe is a thought-creation of God/Brahman. There is nothing that is not Brahman. We are sparks of Brahman in the illusion of separation (Maya). We are in the process of working our way back to the Oneness. We are Brahman encased in five sheaths (bodies) and the outermost sheath is the physical body. The other bodies are super-physical and beyond our ability to detect with physical instruments. The so-called soul body grows through multiple experiences on the physical plane through multiple outer bodies.

Where did these concepts come from? From great masters/seers/sages/God-men/saints/gurus/whatever-term. They are souls more advanced than us and able to experience through their super-physical bodies and are re-born for the purpose of teaching. After careful consideration, and considering evidence of the paranormal, I have objectively decided the best of these teachers are to be revered and learned from. I’ve certainly well considered the atheist argument that they must be all self-deluded/con-men/frauds/crazies/ego-maniacs/whatever-term.

That is called an Appeal to Authority logical fallacy. It doesn't matter if they were "great masters/sages/seers" etc. It still boils down to a burden of proof, which religious/spiritual persons avoid by saying their knowledge is "Divine".

 

[Looncall]

Both statements are equally correct. And I never used the word "supernatural".

The statements are not equivalent. On one hand, there may be a mechanism, we just don't know what it is. On the other hand, you are claiming to know that there is no mechanism. The truth of that claim requires to be demonstrated.

 

[Looncall]

That's right!

I think you are confusing two or three different questions:

Is consciousness physical?
Is consciousness affected by physical processes?
Is consciousness dependent on physical processes?

The answer to the first question is definitively no.

The answer to the second is it appears so though we cannot identify any method of causation. A connection between the physical and non-physical. So if this is the case then the method of causation must be non-physical itself. As a sidenote I think this is similar to what happens in quantum entanglement.

The answer to the third question is we simply don't know. But as I have suggested in this thread there is evidence to suggest the answer is no.

So above you are asking questions of the second type.

Qualia are always part of conscience experience and vice versa. You can't speak of them as being distinct from one another.

To answer the second part first mere examination of the brain. I will try to illustrate what I mean by sticking with the analogy of a television set. I think you would agree that if we were to take apart a tv set we could identify what parts do what. Even if we were unfamiliar with the technology we could probably reverse engineer it.

Now let's imagine a scenario. We approach a building. On the outside of the building are a video camera and a speaker. We hear a voice come from the speaker who identifies and greets us. We now examine how this was done. We see that the camera is connected by a cable to a tv monitor and that the occupant of the building speaks through a microphone which we hear through the speaker outside the building. Very easy to understand. We could examine this in more detail if we wished to determine how the electronic signal coming from the camera is converted to sights and sounds on the monitor, etc.

Now if we apply this same scenario to a person it breaks down very quickly. A person has something like a camera in their head--their eyes. And they have something like a speaker--their mouth. And they have something like a cable connected to their camera--their optic nerve. But that's all. The end of the cable is severed and frayed. It dead ends. There is no tv monitor inside to convert the signal anyway. And no homunculus to watch it.

But it gets even weirder than that. Because rather than someone watching on the other end it appears the person is actually looking through the camera! Their experience is front of it, not behind it!

The point I'm making is that we have examined enough brains now and know enough about how they work to know there is nothing like a signal converter/video monitor inside of them. Everyone agrees with this and agrees to suggest it does invokes the Cartesian Theater.

But what physicalists (of the sort I originally identified) try to argue is that the signal in the cable is watching itself! Yet if someone suggested that the signal in a tv cable is able to watch reruns of I Love Lucy along with us they would be laughed to scorn! Or similarly if the CPU in our computers were following along consciously with this conversation!

Because we simply have no means to scientifically study the non-physical realm.

Well I think I have explained this as well as I can at this point.

Because we simply have no means to scientifically study the non-physical realm.

I'll stop there and answer the last part in another post. Also I hope you noticed I had to break up my answer in two parts the last time because of allowable character length.

Do you consider a process that is occurring in a physical substrate to be something non-physical? Eg a calculation on a computer.

Do you hold that only objects can be studied, not processes?

It seems to me that you are using some sort of equivocation to slip the supernatural in by the back door.

I am reminded of the phrase I read somewhere: "minds are what brains do".

 

[nazz]

The statements are not equivalent. On one hand, there may be a mechanism, we just don't know what it is. On the other hand, you are claiming to know that there is no mechanism. The truth of that claim requires to be demonstrated.

But in truth both monists and dualists agree there is no mechanism in the brain so it's a moot point. Do you think there is a little man watching a video monitor inside your head? Don't you think if that were the case we would be able to see it if we opened up your skull?