(May 31, 2017 at 2:21 pm)Khemikal Wrote: OFC I wouldn't, but since I'm not arguing that what relevance does it hold?  Here again we see language that invokes what cannot be.  Projector?  What is it projecting -to-?

Projectors project onto a screen. But don't strain the analogy. The point is that Casablanca is there to be experienced, even if the original sights and sounds weren't produced at the same time (they weren't, if there was any sound editing, for example).

Quote:  The humonculus rears it's ugly head again.   Eliminative materialists don't think that there is no discrete mental state, in time, of processing.  The are skeptical with regards to whatever it is we seem to  think the projector is projecting -to-, to take your terms.   

The brain is processing a variety of impulses, and those are brought together (lag or no lag) in a unified context. Even the "seeming," as you say, is itself a context-- seeming-together. I see a dog, touch a dog, hear a dog, and those sensations are bundled-- something, whatever it is, is aware of the relationship between those sensations.

Quote: 
This refinement (I actually don't see any) does not change the comments levied at it from eliminative materialism.  OFC eliminative materialists think that  something exists which is capable of what we call subjective agency.  They don't think that it -is- what it reports itself as, and they don't think that every instance of a reported subjective experience is a legitimate account.  Some, many or most..in their opinion, are the cognitive equivalents of a false memory.  The cognitive equivalent of an afterimage.  There's a picture of the humonculus, not a humonculus.

Where's the after-image?

Quote:- :looks up:........that's shakier than the last one, namely..in that -what it feels like for experiences to be experienced- is exactly what's in error.....?  It feels like I'm a little man in my head currently experiencing the present.....

If you feel like you're a little man in your head, that's your problem. Anyway, there's no "error" in awareness, and can't be, because it's not defined in relation to anything but the non-lacking of qualia. So long as anything at all is experienced, that fact is sufficient to establish awareness.

Quote:Eliminative materialists think that many explanations of consciousness have failed to find what must be present in order for them to be true, pursuant to that, holding to their definitions of consciousness is to fail before we have begun.

It's tarting to sound like you've found IIT with a cool new name.

(May 31, 2017 at 7:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Projectors project onto a screen.  But don't strain the analogy.  The point is that Casablanca is there to be experienced, even if the original sights and sounds weren't produced at the same time (they weren't, if there was any sound editing, for example).

There to be experienced by what? Where is the screen, because, without it, the analogy doesn't hold. I have to ask.  Is consciousness like a movie, a multimedia presentation? Is your experience like sound editing?  

Quote:The brain is processing a variety of impulses, and those are brought together (lag or no lag) in a unified context.  

By what, where?  

Quote:Even the "seeming," as you say, is itself a context-- seeming-together.  I see a dog, touch a dog, hear a dog, and those sensations are bundled-- something, whatever it is, is aware of the relationship between those sensations.

Or is it alot like a multimedia presentation that's been heavily edited to seem that way?  

Quote:Where's the after-image?

-exactly?

Quote:If you feel like you're a little man in your head, that's your problem.

LOL, that's our problem.  It would beggar belief for you to imply that your experience was otherwise.  

Quote:Anyway, there's no "error" in awareness, and can't be, because it's not defined in relation to anything but the non-lacking of qualia.  So long as anything at all is experienced, that fact is sufficient to establish awareness.

How can it be, when it can't be trusted to accurately self report in the first place?  We seem to be experiencing, but if seeming to be is enough to establish the accuracy of that description... a convincing fake, a p-zombie, is as conscious as you or I by that standard.  It also seems to be experiencing.  

Quote:It's tarting to sound like you've found IIT with a cool new name.  

Wasn't familiar with that one, looked it up.  Nah.  Eliminative materialism has been around since the 60's - IIT...'04.

Here's this gem-

Quote:The axioms describe regularities in conscious experience, and IIT seeks to explain these regularities. What could account for the fact that every experience exists, is structured, is differentiated, is unified, and is definite? IIT argues that the existence of an underlying causal system with these same properties offers the most parsimonious explanation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated...ion_theory

This -seems- to be a way of phrasing the idea that the mental states we believe in (those things we experience), will map to a discrete mental state....precisely what eliminative materialists deny or apply skepticism towards. I may be wrong, though. They propose that the existence of a causal system with the same properties, a central, unified region of processing for the central, unified nature of experience as it seems to us. Well, sure, but in the absence of such a system...what, then becomes the most parsimonious explanation? Eliminative materialists suggest that the most parsimonious explanation then, might be to say that no such thing exists, since there is no such required causal system.....rather than twisting themselves into knots trying to explain how something can exist in spite of it's dependencies not existing.

(May 31, 2017 at 8:26 am)Khemikal Wrote: So, the brain generates the "soul", then?  

No. It received a breath from God, that turned it on.
Just like an electrical current operating a machine.

First came the creation, then the breathing of the soul. A fine creation supports the soul by design.
Consciousness cannot be without a fine creation that supports it.

The brain generates a strange current. I believe that's the soul breathed into us.

In other words; there's this verse:

Quote:Sura 2, Page 6, The Quran:

( 30 )   And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" Allah said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know."

( 31 )   And He taught Adam the names - all of them. Then He showed them to the angels and said, "Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful."
( 32 )   They said, "Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise."
( 33 )   He said, "O Adam, inform them of their names." And when he had informed them of their names, He said, "Did I not tell you that I know the unseen [aspects] of the heavens and the earth? And I know what you reveal and what you have concealed."
( 34 )   And [mention] when We said to the angels, "Prostrate before Adam"; so they prostrated, except for Iblees. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.

What did God teach us?

What are these names? I think this is the first step humanity took: realizing the surroundings; informing the angels of their names; realization. The evolutionary step that differed us from apes.

That's my own interpretation of the verse; however. Personal thoughts.

Quote:Because you had a human mommy and daddy.

What made the evolutionary step happen?
If nature is the answer; then what made nature happen, what a peculiar cause.
We'll keep tracking back until the Big Bang. 

And then we're back at step zero: what caused the Big Bang?

Quote:That verse proves nothing, and contradicts your own earlier remarks. Did god blow my consciousness/soul/mind into existence, or is the brain "rigged to generate it"?

Allow me to suggest that this is one subject where the proposition of souls and gods is entirely worthless. A subject in which the quran is not qualified to speak, because the authors knew absolutely nothing of the matter.

Evolution and many other biological findings point to how we came to be.
The soul as I understand it, influenced by the verses, is similar to the electric current operating a machine.

(May 31, 2017 at 9:54 pm)AtlasS33 Wrote:

(May 31, 2017 at 8:26 am)Khemikal Wrote: So, the brain generates the "soul", then?  

No. It received a breath from God, that turned it on.
Just like an electrical current operating a machine.

Idk, it seems confused to me.  You claimed that the brain was rigged to generate the consciousness, and then a few sentences later that the consciousness was the soul..if both statements are true, then the brain is rigged to generate the soul, by your own descriptions.  I, too, thought it came out of left ffield for you to claim that god breathed it in, then or now in it;s reassertion.  Why?  Wasn't it already rigged to generate the consciousness./....does god blow everyone individually at birth?

Why is it that people constantly describe a god that sounds suspiciously like a sex offender?  Honest question...this shit happens alot....?

Quote:First came the creation, then the breathing of the soul. A fine creation supports the soul by design.
Consciousness cannot be without a fine creation that supports it.

The brain generates a strange current. I believe that's the soul breathed into us.

In other words; there's this verse:

Cool story?

Quote:What did God teach us?

Nothing, as usual?

Quote:What are these names? I think this is the first step humanity took: realizing the surroundings; informing the angels of their names; realization. The evolutionary step that differed us from apes.

That's my own interpretation of the verse; however. Personal thoughts.

Well, they were personal, but now they're kind of public...and that's a whopper to open up on.  

Quote:What made the evolutionary step happen?

What evolutionary step?  

Quote:If nature is the answer; then what made nature happen, what a peculiar cause.
We'll keep tracking back until the Big Bang. 

And then we're back at step zero: what caused the Big Bang?

That you can keep asking questions until you think you;ve hit on an unaswerable question doesn;t make the initial question unanswerable...or even unanswered........

Quote:Evolution and many other biological findings point to how we came to be.

Not in the manner in which you're using that phrase, no..they don't.  

Quote:The soul as I understand it, influenced by the verses, is similar to the electric current operating a machine.

There's an -actual- electric current in there...it's an electro-chemical system.  What is the spirit electricity (lol?) doing in there...bit redundant, isn't it?

(May 31, 2017 at 7:59 pm)Khemikal Wrote: There to be experienced by what?  Where is the screen, because, without it, the analogy doesn't hold. I have to ask.  Is consciousness like a movie, a multimedia presentation? Is your experience like sound editing?  

Yeah, it's kind of a circle jerk, isn't it? The sense of awareness and the content of experience seem to be mutually defining. The "by what" is "whatever is experiencing the experiences" and the experiences are whatever that thing we just talked about is going through.

I'm not insensitive to that fact. Would it be possible, for example, to have that awareness without any content at all? Sometimes I think that when I'm asleep, there IS a kind of deep philosophical awareness, almost completely contentless-- but of course none of that is centered around the ideas of self and so on that would be required to verbalize it or remember it. Trying to put words to things like that gets deepity or woo pretty fast.

It may be that there is neither an agent nor content, but agent-content, something ambiguous akin to wave-particle or something.

Quote:By what, where?  

In the subjective experience.

Quote:Or is it alot like a multimedia presentation that's been heavily edited to seem that way?

For the observer, the things in the edited presentation ARE happening together. That they didn't really happen together at their source doesn't matter because a new context is established for them to be brought together.

Quote:

Quote:Where's the after-image?

-exactly?

Okay. You said there was an after-image. Find it, and you've found your consciousness. If you can't find it, then you can't find it-- but I think it's an appeal to ignorance to say, "We can't find it, so it doesn't exist."

To be honest, much of your line of reasoning makes me feel very good about substance pluralist or idealist positions. If you can't find it, it's not where you're looking for it. So where else could it be. You might say, "It isn't. It doesn't exist." But I'm content enough to take my sense of subjective awareness as brute fact, and ask the question: "If it doesn't exist in the framework of your world view, then what is your world view missing?"

I think this is a very legitimate question for material monists, and very many of the theories of mind we discuss are really just complex linguistic remedies to the hard problem of consciousness.

(June 1, 2017 at 12:39 am)bennyboy Wrote: Yeah, it's kind of a circle jerk, isn't it?  The sense of awareness and the content of experience seem to be mutually defining.  The "by what" is "whatever is experiencing the experiences" and the experiences are whatever that thing we just talked about is going through.

I agree, assuming that the experience that we're talking about isn't some sort of cognitive error in the first place.  

Quote:I'm not insensitive to that fact.  Would it be possible, for example, to have that awareness without any content at all?  Sometimes I think that when I'm asleep, there IS a kind of deep philosophical awareness, almost completely contentless-- but of course none of that is centered around the ideas of self and so on that would be required to verbalize it or remember it.  Trying to put words to things like that gets deepity or woo pretty fast.

Hence the utility and compelling nature of a narrative center of gravity..regardless of whether or not it exists as-such.

Quote:It may be that there is neither an agent nor content, but agent-content, something ambiguous akin to wave-particle or something.

A definite maybe.  

Quote:In the subjective experience.

]
You understand that an eliminative materialist doesn't have this crutch to fall on, though, right?  They can't posit an "in there" when there is no there, in there.  

Quote:For the observer, the things in the edited presentation ARE happening together.  That they didn't really happen together at their source doesn't matter because a new context is established for them to be brought together.

It does matter, to a description of consciousness.  In the one, there is an active and present observer..how this little trick plays out and seems to us.  In the other, there is not..there is a composite story of an active observer in the present.  The distinction is profound.  

Quote:Okay.  You said there was an after-image.  Find it, and you've found your consciousness.  If you can't find it, then you can't find it-- but I think it's an appeal to ignorance to say, "We can't find it, so it doesn't exist."

That's not what they're saying.  They're saying that some mental experiences that most of us believe in do not, or cannot..map to a discrete mental state.  It's not, in their view, that they haven't found it.  In their view, it will not -be- found, because it isn't in there.  There's no there in there, and there's no little man in there.  Nuerons, the things that mental states are made of, not only -aren't- doing what consciousness reports itself as....they can't do what consciousness reports itself as.  

Quote:To be honest, much of your line of reasoning makes me feel very good about substance pluralist or idealist positions.  If you can't find it, it's not where you're looking for it.  So where else could it be.  You might say, "It isn't.  It doesn't exist."  But I'm content enough to take my sense of subjective awareness as brute fact, and ask the question: "If it doesn't exist in the framework of your world view, then what is your world view missing?"

Again, it's not just an issue of not being able to find it.  What we have found suggests, strongly, that it cannot be done as described, that it cannot exist as described.  That no such bundle of neurons will ever map to this seeming as it reports itself.  Making it, effectively, the ghost in the machine if it does exist as it reports itself.  Thing is, in their opinion, it's not required in order to explain why it seems that way.  

Quote:I think this is a very legitimate question for material monists, and very many of the theories of mind we discuss are really just complex linguistic remedies to the hard problem of consciousness.

Dennet thinks that a portion of modern materialistic theories of mind rely, silently, on a form of cartesian dualism. Rather than explain how a material structure like a brain arrives at this, they lean on element x and the abilities of the singular entity made of element x in order to plaster their material nothings on top of a description that -sounds- alot like how their experience feels...even if that's not what their brain is actually doing. In truth, it should be -those- theories of mind that make you feel good about idealism or substance dualism. Eliminative materialism is poison to both. Not only are you completely mistaken, in their view...there might not be anything to leverage your mistak in explanation of.

Eliminative materialism is radical in it;s reduction, but uncontroversial in it's premises. Right or wrong, they;re showing other materialists how to -really- stick to it. If you can't find it, and the matter to which you attribute it cannot do what it seems to be doing...then you are wrong, it does not exist as-such. There's either some other..material.... way that it can present itself as such, or it flat out doesn;t exist. The cognitive equivalent of phlogiston.

---

-we might be able to summarize their position on the issue as a gigo moment. Garbage in, garbage out.  If science continues to chase a ghost, then it's consigning itself to peddling a promisory note of future discovery for eternity.  At some point, somebody has to say enough is enough. Why do that, though, if there's no need to do so?

(June 1, 2017 at 12:55 am)Khemikal Wrote: I agree, assuming that the experience that we're talking about isn't some sort of cognitive error in the first place.  

This whole concept is still throwing me. How can an experience be anything but a bona fide experience? It is not intrinsically attached to any truth value or rightness or wrongness.

Quote:[quote]

I'm not insensitive to that fact.  Would it be possible, for example, to have that awareness without any content at all?  Sometimes I think that when I'm asleep, there IS a kind of deep philosophical awareness, almost completely contentless-- but of course none of that is centered around the ideas of self and so on that would be required to verbalize it or remember it.  Trying to put words to things like that gets deepity or woo pretty fast.

Hence the utility and compelling nature of a narrative center of gravity..regardless of whether or not it exists as-such.

Quote:You understand that an eliminative materialist doesn't have this crutch to fall on, though, right?  They can't posit an "in there" when there is no there, in there.  

Quote:It does matter, to a description of consciousness.  In the one, there is an active and present observer..how this little trick plays out and seems to us.  In the other, there is not..there is a composite story of an active observer in the present.  The distinction is profound.  

Yeah, that's the right word for it. I'm beginning to get an actual glimmer of interest in this thread, because while the particular views might not be my own, I like that people are really stretching for new views on this stuff. Not only that, it's interesting to see how much of the new ideas discussed in context of material monist philosophy closely mirror things I've read from Hindu or Buddhist philosophy-- maybe those guys actually had brains, and weren't just woo-tards after all, eh?

Quote:That's not what they're saying.  They're saying that some mental experiences that most of us believe in do not, or cannot..map to a discrete mental state.  It's not, in their view, that they haven't found it.  In their view, it will not -be- found, because it isn't in there.  There's no there in there, and there's no little man in there.  Nuerons, the things that mental states are made of, not only -aren't- doing what consciousness reports itself as....they can't do what consciousness reports itself as.

If consciousness isn't a property or a function of material systems, then what the heck do they think it is?

Quote: 
Right or wrong, they;re showing other materialists how to -really- stick to it.  If you can't find it, and the matter to which you attribute it cannot do what it seems to be doing...then you are wrong, it does not exist as-such.  There's either some other..material.... way that it can present itself as such, or it flat out doesn;t exist.  The cognitive equivalent of phlogiston.

This sounds suspiciously like what I've sometimes said about the science of mind-- if you can't identify it directly, or show what systems do/don't experience qualia, then stop saying you're doing science of the mind, and call it neurology.

Quote:

---

-we might be able to summarize their position on the issue as a gigo moment. Garbage in, garbage out.  If science continues to chase a ghost, then it's consigning itself to peddling a promisory note of future discovery for eternity.  At some point, somebody has to say enough is enough.  Why do that, though, if there's no need to do so?

I'm going to have to take a break from this thread and find some good sources on this. My interest is piqued enough to track down some seriously literature on it.

(June 1, 2017 at 5:04 am)bennyboy Wrote: This whole concept is still throwing me.  How can an experience be anything but a bona fide experience?  It is not intrinsically attached to any truth value or rightness or wrongness.

Sure it is, it's intrinsically attached the truth value of an "experience",  of an "I" -to- experience, the truth value of any dependencies of that experience, or of that I, or of whatever it is you're describing...intrinsically attached, just like everything else, to the truth value of those propositions it assumes.

What if it's a self-alike organizing system..in that how I report and describe my "experience" is little more than a collection of ways that I've heard it described before that fit propositions to which I already have access?  The brain expects and so reports a self that experiences because this is one of the cultural/linguistic inputs which it was fed....and machines assume the truth of their inputs as a matter of course.  "I was conscious at/of moment x", rather than actually -being- conscious of or at moment x.  

What if some or all of how it seems to be is merely the narrative context for a record of behavior that's been created, but not necessarily a record of any genuine experience or self?

Even experience, itself, is impeachable. It can't be treated as a brute fact that certifies it's own accuracy.  This is one of the things that makes subjective agency less than useful in a scientific explanation of consciousness.  It's not objective(lol), it's commonly in error, and it might not even exist, at the very least not in the way that people commonly envision and experience it. It can;t exist in that way, unless theres some mysterious and unknown element x - another proposition not available to eliminative materialists, or any materialist.

 

Quote:Yeah, that's the right word for it.  I'm beginning to get an actual glimmer of interest in this thread, because while the particular views might not be my own, I like that people are really stretching for new views on this stuff.  Not only that, it's interesting to see how much of the new ideas discussed in context of material monist philosophy closely mirror things I've read from Hindu or Buddhist philosophy-- maybe those guys actually had brains, and weren't just woo-tards after all, eh?

Nah, wootards.  Unfortunately, that's another thing that brains cant do; keep us from being woo-tards.  

Quote:If consciousness isn't a property or a function of material systems, then what the heck do they think it is?

Not really what they're saying.  They're saying that some descriptions of consciousness do not or cannot map to a discrete mental state.  Many still think that whatever is presenting itself as-such is a property or function of material systems...it's just not the property or function it self reports as.  This is why dennet, for example, makes comments to the effect of "consciousness doesn't exist"  -and- "ofc consciousness exists, it's just not what you think it is".  The designation all hinges on what someone -else- insists is consciousness.  Those that would, though, take the hardest reduction - would tell you that they don't believe that it -is-, in the first place.

It;s very important to acknowledge a distinction between consciousness as it reports itself or consciousness described as x, and consciousness as it actually is, if it is....because otherwise, the tendency is towards straw.  Not, imo, because a person is trying to pitch straw, but because eliminative materialism is counter-intuitive-.  Particularly in that what eliminative materialism takes aim at...are our intuitive notions of consciousness in the first place.  

Quote:This sounds suspiciously like what I've sometimes said about the science of mind-- if you can't identify it directly, or show what systems do/don't experience qualia, then stop saying you're doing science of the mind, and call it neurology.

Well, they probably couldn't throw in the end of that, about nuerology, nor would they have to insist on the actual existence of qualia as described by some position x. But yeah..something like that.  

Quote:I'm going to have to take a break from this thread and find some good sources on this.  My interest is piqued enough to track down some seriously literature on it.

Enjoy it bigly. Here's a fun one to mull over while you do. Is there a consciousness that tells a story about behavior; or is there a behavior that tells a story about consciousness?

(June 1, 2017 at 12:55 am)Khemikal Wrote: Dennet thinks that a portion of modern materialistic theories of mind rely, silently, on a form of cartesian dualism.  

And therein lies his mistake. He continually likens consciousness to a physical homunculus then challenges others to find it. He's like the man who only looks for his lost watch under the street light because that's where the light is good.

(June 1, 2017 at 10:32 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: And therein lies his mistake. He continually likens consciousness to a physical homunculus then challenges others to find it.

OFC, because, in his opinion, those people advocate for a theory of mind that depends on there being a physical humonculus.  Some bubble in processing where processing becomes consciousness.  Some discrete mental state that maps to our feeling of being as-such.  We just saw one theory of mind, IIT, that takes it as axiomatic that such a system or region exists.

Well, okay, put em on the glass?

Quote:He's like the man who only looks for his lost watch under the street light because that's where the light is good.

You know, I really don't know how to take this Neo?  If someone tell's me there's a humonculus...-I- shouldn't even have to shine a light....that should have already been done by the person proposing it.

Wouldn't you agree?

Hell, speaking of agreement. I get that you don;t agree with eliminative materialists, or any materialist...ultimately, on the nature of consciousness. O-kay. However, that shouldn't stop you from both seeing and agreeing with the thrust of em. That what must be in order for some materialist theories of mind to be true, by their own descriptions, is not or cannot be found in the brain.