Consciousness

[Aupmanyav]

.. and the difference between Brahma (a real god--the creator god) and Brahman(a) (essentially a spiritual force binding the oneness of everything or the "supreme self") is not obvious, perhaps not even to most Hindus.

My view is different from both these views. For me Brahman is neither a God nor any supreme spiritual force; but simply the stuff of the universe, the underlying substrate of the universe, the brick with which the whole universe is constituted, i.e., 'physical energy' (light, heat, electromagnetic radiation, etc.). My view of Advaita (non-duality) does not support any woo.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I'm with Massimo Pigliucci on that. I don't actually think there is a "hard problem" of consciousness at all: What Hard Problem? | Issue 99 | Philosophy Now

It seems me there’s some sleight of hand underpinning Pigliucci’s argument here. Isn’t he arguing that there is no need to explain experience because experience and explanation are somehow incommensurate categories (of what, he doesn’t say)? I’m not sure how that argument stands up.

The phenomenological, experiential aspects of consciousness are the key to the Hard Problem. At least Dan Dennett has a direct answer to this question, in declaring the experience of consciousness to be an illusion. Thus Dennett directly addresses what Pigliucci has neatly sidestepped. But this doesn’t get us off the hook either; to declare something an illusion merely implies that we the observer have misinterpreted what is presented to our senses. In order for there to be an illusion, there must be information and there must be interpretation. The information may have been misinterpreted, but the illusion itself still requires an explanation.

None of this, it seems to me, refutes the contention that in reducing the mind entirely to a function of the brain, something is necessarily lost; that something being what Nagel characterises as ‘what it is like’ to be a bat (or a human thinking about a bat).

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not sure that we do agree. We can talk about other people's subjective perspective as a third party observer and even do experiments to discover how and why physical events affect their perspective. So we have a basis for objective investigation of subjective experiences.

It's important to remember that physics is about interactions--forces that attract and repel interacting physical objects. Those interactions are chaotic but become predictable when observed locally. Patterns of interaction emerge from chaotic physical interactions, so it seems reasonable to me that very complex brain activity is nothing more than an emergent pattern of behavior that occurs when very complex fleshy robots (i.e. animals with brains) interact with each other. IOW, consciousness is another emergent pattern of physical interactions albeit an extremely complex one.

That is not objective in any meaningful sense and that is my point. You are talking about your first person subjective perspective and how it connects to the physical.
So the trick is that the physical causes the subjective, but it is not possible to do everything objectively.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I believe all other consciousness than homo omnisciencis views all things from the inside. This is not exactly the same as having a view from everywhere, but there are similarities since its place in the entirety of existence can be further defined. It is this more than any single thing that separates modern humans from all other species. We not only describe all things from a timeless perspective at infinite distance but language forces it on us.

Our consciousness no longer resonates with nature.

Animals (and ancient man) are in the here and now and see reality from the inside. This is foundational to all these many languages too. A bee establishes the time as well as the distance by waggling in line with the sunrise. All other language is representative where ours is symbolic.

To an extent, yes; we have come unstuck in time and space. One facet of our own consciousness, one quality of mind, alienates us from the depth and wonder of awareness. Our capacity for abstract thought, for language, for intellectual abstractions, takes us out of the here and now, leaving us often anxious and bewildered. This, it seems, is the price we pay for intelligence and knowledge.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It seems me there’s some sleight of hand underpinning Pigliucci’s argument here. Isn’t he arguing that there is no need to explain experience because experience and explanation are somehow incommensurate categories (of what, he doesn’t say)? I’m not sure how that argument stands up.

The phenomenological, experiential aspects of consciousness are the key to the Hard Problem. At least Dan Dennett has a direct answer to this question, in declaring the experience of consciousness to be an illusion. Thus Dennett directly addresses what Pigliucci has neatly sidestepped. But this doesn’t get us off the hook either; to declare something an illusion merely implies that we the observer have misinterpreted what is presented to our senses. In order for there to be an illusion, there must be information and there must be interpretation. The information may have been misinterpreted, but the illusion itself still requires an explanation.

None of this, it seems to me, refutes the contention that in reducing the mind entirely to a function of the brain, something is necessarily lost; that something being what Nagel characterises as ‘what it is like’ to be a bat (or a human thinking about a bat).

The problem as I understand it, is that they in effect cheat. They have a hidden assumption in their cognitive first person understanding, namely that only the objective and physical is real. But they can't show that as real as objective and physical.
Here is how it relates to skepticism and a way to read a text as explained by David Hume. Read in part a text for markers of objective facts and subjective evaluation and then you can notice the following. The text will claim a fact and then claim a subjective evaluation.
Example. The universe is physical and that matters. That it matters, doesn't follow with logic from the first part and if you ask for evidence that it matters, there is no objective and physical evidence.
That one happens a lot, but it is always in the end a varaint of the is-ought problem. There is a world and what ought we do about that? Now ought is a part of how humans do subjective evaluation of what makes sense and is real.

So in your example that problem is that an illusion is a first person subjective evaluation and that it is true and real, that, it is an illusion, has no objective and physical evidence. I.e. it is a cheat, because it assumes what it denies.

As for phenomenological, that is in effect as old as philsophy, because it was already noticed at the start of philsophy:
Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." Protagoras.
The rest of philosphy is a fight about how many different cognitive and emotional measuremt acts there are and which one is the most important one. The joke is that important is in the end emotional and not rational, objective and physical.

 

[exchemist]

It seems me there’s some sleight of hand underpinning Pigliucci’s argument here. Isn’t he arguing that there is no need to explain experience because experience and explanation are somehow incommensurate categories (of what, he doesn’t say)? I’m not sure how that argument stands up.

The phenomenological, experiential aspects of consciousness are the key to the Hard Problem. At least Dan Dennett has a direct answer to this question, in declaring the experience of consciousness to be an illusion. Thus Dennett directly addresses what Pigliucci has neatly sidestepped. But this doesn’t get us off the hook either; to declare something an illusion merely implies that we the observer have misinterpreted what is presented to our senses. In order for there to be an illusion, there must be information and there must be interpretation. The information may have been misinterpreted, but the illusion itself still requires an explanation.

None of this, it seems to me, refutes the contention that in reducing the mind entirely to a function of the brain, something is necessarily lost; that something being what Nagel characterises as ‘what it is like’ to be a bat (or a human thinking about a bat).

There's no need to define categories of what, though. Just different categories of entity, just as colours and shapes are in his example.

I see a red object. Science describes the process by which my eyes and brain detect the light and register the colour. This results in the sensation I perceive. But demanding an explanation for the nature of that sensation is a hopeless task, as (i) no one but me can be me and (ii) there can't be any words to describe it, since words rely on common experience, which an intrinsically subjective sensation can never be.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There's no need to define categories of what, though. Just different categories of entity, just as colours and shapes are in his example.

I see a red object. Science describes the process by which my eyes and brain detect the light and register the colour. This results in the sensation I perceive. But demanding an explanation for the nature of that sensation is a hopeless task, as (i) no one but me can be me and (ii) there can't be any words to describe it, since words rely on common experience, which an intrinsically subjective sensation can never be.

The problem is that there are 3 states in play and not just 2.
Subjective, inter-subjective and objective.
The joke about words for their meaning is that their meaning is not objective or individually subjective, but rather inter-subjective for this understanding of that as existing between conscious minds; shared by more than one conscious mind.

Further science doesn't describe anything. Humans with a certain set of assumptions and behaviour describe certain aspects of the human experience and behaviour in certain relationships as to certain asepcts of the world as such.
The joke is that the bold ones is not really science as such for all versions of science, but rather a result of your subjective assumptions, yet I understand that subjectively and then do another version of in effect science.
If you really want to nitpick it, it is that there are 2 different and in effect contradictory versions of the verb be for X is Y.
The one is external sensory experince and the other is internal sensory experince and those 2 require some training to spot and differentiate.
As an example is "the universe is physical" for the "is" external or internal in the end?

 

[Aupmanyav]

Better still would be to accept that objective is a relative term, and that truth is, too: complex, multifaceted, rarely if ever single, never simple.

I do not know who posted this since Cladking has not given the name of the poster, but if we do not know the answer, why should we presume that "objective is a relative term, and that truth is, too: complex, multifaceted, rarely if ever single, never simple." Perhaps it is single and too simple like relativity only that we are yet not there.

 

[RestlessSoul]

There's no need to define categories of what, though. Just different categories of entity, just as colours and shapes are in his example.

I see a red object. Science describes the process by which my eyes and brain detect the light and register the colour. This results in the sensation I perceive. But demanding an explanation for the nature of that sensation is a hopeless task, as (i) no one but me can be me and (ii) there can't be any words to describe it, since words rely on common experience, which an intrinsically subjective sensation can never be.

Which brings us round to Protagoras’ observation, as quoted by @mikkel_the_dane in #165

Or as Werner Heisenberg phrased it in the context of the measurement problem in QM, “Man in his hunt for objective reality, finally discovers that he always confronts himself alone.”

In any case, collective experiences (subjective though singly they necessarily are), confirmed by consensus, are the closest we can ever come to objectivity.

 

[cladking]

I do not know who posted this since Cladking has not given the name of the poster,

This was quoted here by FaithNotBelief;

I think this observation at location 10145 might apply here given the vehemence with which the OP has presented his thesis and rejected out of hand all objections raised against it:

I think there's a great deal of insight in all these posts. There's also a lot of truth as well.

The problem is most of what is being said applies to thought and not to consciousness. I believe consciousness is life and all life is individual. But we homo omnisciencis use different programming I call modern languages than all other species that ever existed. This programming makes us very different and gives rise to abstract thought that hides the nature of consciousness from us.

A bee understands its consciousness from a bee's perspective. We can't directly experience anything because our programming prevents it.

 

[cladking]

IMHO, there is no bliss or sorrow for Brahman (To think like that is a common mistake, especially for many in Hinduism). Brahman is 'Nirvikar' (without blemish). Bliss is attachment, a blemish. One can have bliss or sorrow only if one is attached to something (In Hindi/Sanskrit - Asakti).
Though we may have interacted, I do not really know your perspective.
Yeah, sure science provides answers. Inquiry gets us the answers. We know what causes malaria.

I was merely trying to state the concept from a Hindu perspective and probably failed.

I believe that the resting state of consciousness is a positive experience for individuals. It is largely this that makes all individuals try to preserve their lives no matter how terrifying or painful their current state. Individuals strive to return to the resting state and to maximize their time within it.

 

[cladking]

I think there's a great deal of insight in all these posts. There's also a lot of truth as well.

The problem is most of what is being said applies to thought and not to consciousness.

Some are rejecting both thought and consciousness because our science can't define or quantify them. They are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Copernicus]

That is not objective in any meaningful sense and that is my point. You are talking about your first person subjective perspective and how it connects to the physical.
So the trick is that the physical causes the subjective, but it is not possible to do everything objectively.

My position is that we can imagine different perspectives--not just first person or the one we associate with our physical selves. There is such a thing as empathy for beings and objects that are not oneself. Imagination is different from experience. We can do so much more with it, including shift our perspectives. You can't shift perspective, if you refuse to consider any but your own personal one. However, your inherent ability to imagine different perspectives frees you of that burden.

Objectivity is a matter of interpreting repeated experiences independently of prejudgments based on emotions, personal beliefs, or biases. You don't just run an experiment once. I think that you have been pursuing a concept of "objective" that is not meaningful, so we can both agree on that, at least. But I just don't share your opinion of what it means to take an "objective" perspective. There is a difference between subjectivity and objectivity. Objectivity is based on the results of measurements and data.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

My position is that we can imagine different perspectives--not just first person or the one we associate with our physical selves. There is such a thing as empathy for beings and objects that are not oneself. Imagination is different from experience. We can do so much more with it, including shift our perspectives. You can't shift perspective, if you refuse to consider any but your own personal one. However, your inherent ability to imagine different perspectives frees you of that burden.

Objectivity is a matter of interpreting repeated experiences independently of prejudgments based on emotions, personal beliefs, or biases. You don't just run an experiment once. I think that you have been pursuing a concept of "objective" that is not meaningful, so we can both agree on that, at least. But I just don't share you opinion on what it means to take an "objective" perspective. There is a difference between subjectivity and objectivity.

Okay. But that is not possible for all human behavior as far as I can tell. And it also matter if there are more than one class of experinces.
As for as I can tell not all experinces are external sensory experinces as per the 5 senses of sight, touch/feel, sound, taste and smell.
You model requires that all experinces are of the external kind.

 

[Copernicus]

Okay. But that is not possible for all human behavior as far as I can tell. And it also matter if there are more than one class of experinces.
As for as I can tell not all experinces are external sensory experinces as per the 5 senses of sight, touch/feel, sound, taste and smell.
You model requires that all experinces are of the external kind.

Yes, I take the position of embodied cognition. That is, all experience of reality is based on how our human bodies interact with it. If you have some other concept of "internal experience" that is different, you need to explain what you mean.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, I take the position of embodied cognition. That is, all experience of reality is based on how our human bodies interact with it. If you have some other concept of "internal experience" that is different, you need to explain what you mean.

Yeah, but all of our processes are not just the 5 senses as thus objective.
When you say something makes sense to you, you don't use your external interaction with the rest of reality. You experince how a part of your brain works as your brain. I.e. you evaluate as you.

 

[Copernicus]

Yeah, but all of our processes are not just the 5 senses as thus objective.

I'm not wedded to any particular enumeration of bodily sensations that we call "senses", but experiences are created by associations that may involve multiple sensations. Human cognition is fundamentally associative. Ultimately all concepts, including highly abstract ones, are grounded in bodily experiences. Humans, having roughly the same kind of bodily equipment and experiences, are therefore able to share thoughts with each other through language.

When you say something makes sense to you, you don't use your external interaction with the rest of reality. You experince how a part of your brain works as your brain. I.e. you evaluate as you.

You really lost me there. Nothing about reality makes sense to me if I don't ultimately base it on senses.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not wedded to any particular enumerations of bodily sensations that we call "senses", but experiences are created by associations that may involve multiple sensations. Human cognition is fundamentally associative. Ultimately all concepts, including highly abstract ones, are grounded in bodily experiences. Humans, having roughly the same kind of bodily equipment and experiences, are therefore able to share thoughts with each other through language.



You really lost me there. Nothing about reality makes sense to me if I don't ultimately base it on senses.

Yeah, but all of your experinces are not just objective as per your defintion of objective.
Consider how come we have the word subjective, if it was not the case that we actually experinced that. If subjective is a part of being a human, then you can't really be objective all the time.
That is the point of this part of "what science is" site and what science can't do:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

undsci.berkeley.edu

 

[Copernicus]

Yeah, but all of your experinces are not just objective as per your defintion of objective.

But I did not claim all of my experiences were objective. Rather, I said that experiences can be imagined from perspectives that are different from our first person experiences. Empathy is such an imagined experience.

Consider how come we have the word subjective, if it was not the case that we actually experinced that. If subjective is a part of being a human, then you can't really be objective all the time.

I would actually urge you to take into account that "subjective" and "objective" are adjectives that can be used to modify many things. My definition was about using measurement and data as a basis for judging experiences in an "objective manner". Objectivity and subjectivity are nouns that express different ways of judging an event. Objective judgments are considered those that are based on measurements and data and that can be verified through repeated experiences of observation and experimentation. It think that that is a perfectly reasonable and meaningful way to characterize objectivity.

Also, note that I never claimed that we can "really be objective all the time." Why would I make such an absurd claim?

That is the point of this part of "what science is" site and what science can't do:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

undsci.berkeley.edu

I don't think that your site is about defining subjectivity and objectivity. We can certainly study behavior such as making aesthetic judgments in an objective manner and link it to physical brain activity. Science tends to rely on operational definitions for such studies, because it needs to be able to gather some kind of measurable data. In any case, I certainly wasn't trying to claim that the scientific method is always useful in explaining everything. Rather, I was talking about how to construe the concept of objectivity. Being able to shift perspectives away from first person introspectively is key to my argument. You seem to be reading other things into it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But I did not claim all of my experiences were objective. Rather, I said that experiences can be imagined from perspectives that are different from our first person experiences. Empathy is such an imagined experience.



I would actually urge you to take into account that "subjective" and "objective" are adjectives that can be used to modify many things. My definition was about using measurement and data as a basis for judging experiences in an "objective manner". Objectivity and subjectivity are nouns that express different ways of judging an event. Objective judgments are considered those that are based on measurements and data and that can be verified through repeated experiences of observation and experimentation. It think that that is a perfectly reasonable and meaningful way to characterize objectivity.

Also, note that I never claimed that we can "really be objective all the time." Why would I make such an absurd claim?




I don't think that your site is about defining subjectivity and objectivity. We can certainly study behavior such as making aesthetic judgments in an objective manner and link it to physical brain activity. Science tends to rely on operational definitions for such studies, because it needs to be able to gather some kind of measurable data. In any case, I certainly wasn't trying to claim that the scientific method is always useful in explaining everything. Rather, I was talking about how to construe the concept of objectivity. Being able to shift perspectives away from first person introspectively is key to my argument. You seem to be reading other things into it.

No, the problem is that everything is not an objective relationship between a certain cognitive state in a brain and observable measurents and data.
That is the core philosophical assumption in your model. That which you do in a subjective sense as a behaviour in effect in your brain, is in effect not really a subjective behaviour.
That is the core problem. I use objective and subjective as meaning human behaviours for different aspects of human behaviour and different relationships to the world as such including humans with psychological, social and cultural behaviour.
The falsification of the world/the universe/reality/everuthing is only objective, is that I can do a non-objective behaviour and I will now do that.
No, I don¨t do everything in an objective sense as a behaviour and I am doing that right now, because I subjectively chose to write this text.