Let's just say that the part that seems to be a necessary element of catching the ball, subjective awareness of the location of the ball, is absent; yet the lack of an ostensibly necessary part, under the theory that such subjective things are causal -- which is what makes them necessary -- does not prevent the causal chain which results in the appropriate behavior of catching the ball. If catching a ball requires subjective experience, it apparently doesn't require that subjective experience. It's hard to argue, given that one can replace that aspect of the behavior, that one couldn't in theory do likewise with all other subjective aspects of the behavior, resulting in the same behavior but without conscious experience or the involvement of awareness. At the least, it's evidence towards that end.

(January 16, 2023 at 8:50 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 6:29 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Making a guess is, in and of itself, a subjective experience.

Boru

If one is conscious of their guessing, then that would be a subjective experience. If the guessing is happening without any awareness to it, then I don't agree that this is a subjective experience. You could get a computer program to "guess" and predict, does this mean it's having a subjective experience in doing so?

One cannot make a guess without being conscious of doing do. Guessing is a deliberate, volitional act.

Human beings (with very few exceptions) are not computers.

Boru

(January 16, 2023 at 9:22 am)Angrboda Wrote: Let's just say that the part that seems to be a necessary element of catching the ball, subjective awareness of the location of the ball, is absent; yet the lack of an ostensibly necessary part, under the theory that such subjective things are causal -- which is what makes them necessary -- does not prevent the causal chain which results in the appropriate behavior of catching the ball.  If catching a ball requires subjective experience, it apparently doesn't require that subjective experience.  It's hard to argue, given that one can replace that aspect of the behavior, that one couldn't in theory do likewise with all other subjective aspects of the behavior, resulting in the same behavior but without conscious experience or the involvement of awareness.  At the least, it's evidence towards that end.

That would certainly apply if a person catching a ball did so with no sensation or memory of the event. One could catch a ball without subjective awareness, certainly, but the act of catching the ball can’t be anything but a subjective experience: the movement of your arm, the feeling of the ball striking your hand, the weight and texture of the ball - all of these sensations and the subsequent memory of the event qualify it as a subjective experience.

Boru

(January 16, 2023 at 11:10 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 9:22 am)Angrboda Wrote: Let's just say that the part that seems to be a necessary element of catching the ball, subjective awareness of the location of the ball, is absent; yet the lack of an ostensibly necessary part, under the theory that such subjective things are causal -- which is what makes them necessary -- does not prevent the causal chain which results in the appropriate behavior of catching the ball.  If catching a ball requires subjective experience, it apparently doesn't require that subjective experience.  It's hard to argue, given that one can replace that aspect of the behavior, that one couldn't in theory do likewise with all other subjective aspects of the behavior, resulting in the same behavior but without conscious experience or the involvement of awareness.  At the least, it's evidence towards that end.

That would certainly apply if a person catching a ball did so with no sensation or memory of the event. One could catch a ball without subjective awareness, certainly, but the act of catching the ball can’t be anything but a subjective experience: the movement of your arm, the feeling of the ball striking your hand, the weight and texture of the ball - all of these sensations and the subsequent memory of the event qualify it as a subjective experience.

Boru

That's not at issue and is simply a red herring as it isn't required that those subjective elements of catching the ball play a causal role in actually catching the ball, and as such go nowhere in demonstrating that consciousness plays a causal role, which is what is at issue. Like pain, it doesn't appear obvious that the aspects you mention perform a causal role in the behavior. There is nothing about them that is inconsistent with epiphenominalism. Indeed, those elements can be present in cases where no ball was caught.

I'll add a couple of points.

One, if being aware of the properties of an object in our environment is not required for predicting and accurately responding to that information, then it's not clear what, if any, causal role is being posited as belonging to consciousness. In one form or another, if awareness isn't necessary for responding to some information about the environment correctly, then exactly what do non-epiphenomenalists propose consciousness is actually providing?

The second is a caveat to all the foregoing. It occurs to me that most of this is predicated upon the notion that consciousness is both unified and singular in any given brain. Experiments with split-brain patients significantly undermine this assumption in that they suggest that in split-brain patients, there may be multiple centers of the type of cognitions typically associated with consciousness. Under this hypothesis, it's possible that consciousness is aware of the location of the ball in blindsight patients, just not that consciousness, or those parts of it, that are involved in reporting upon one's conscious experience. In some hypotheses, that aspect of consciousness is purely confabulatory. If that is the case, it becomes rather unclear what we actually mean by the term 'consciousness' if we have no reports from the parts of consciousness with causal cognitions and only reports from aspects of consciousness that play no causal role.

(January 16, 2023 at 11:03 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 8:50 am)GrandizerII Wrote: If one is conscious of their guessing, then that would be a subjective experience. If the guessing is happening without any awareness to it, then I don't agree that this is a subjective experience. You could get a computer program to "guess" and predict, does this mean it's having a subjective experience in doing so?

One cannot make a guess without being conscious of doing do. Guessing is a deliberate, volitional act.

Human beings (with very few exceptions) are not computers.

Boru

Even in this case, I do believe we still need to make a distinction between a cognitive act like guessing/planning/decision-making (about which we can conceive of an explanation entirely in terms of neurobiological processes, at least theoretically) and the conscious awareness of that act. This is because there is something that comes off as very weird about consciousness that warrants its own category of investigation.

But I will agree that, in humans, the two tend to correlate together (at least sometimes).

(January 16, 2023 at 12:35 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 11:03 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: One cannot make a guess without being conscious of doing do. Guessing is a deliberate, volitional act.

Human beings (with very few exceptions) are not computers.

Boru

Even in this case, I do believe we still need to make a distinction between a cognitive act like guessing/planning/decision-making (about which we can conceive of an explanation entirely in terms of neurobiological processes, at least theoretically) and the conscious awareness of that act. This is because there is something that comes off as very weird about consciousness that warrants its own category of investigation.

But I will agree that, in humans, the two tend to correlate together (at least sometimes).

Suppose I tell you that I’m thinking of a number between one and ten, and I ask you to guess what it is. Can you make that guess without being aware that you’re making a guess?

Boru

(January 16, 2023 at 1:01 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 12:35 pm)GrandizerII Wrote: Even in this case, I do believe we still need to make a distinction between a cognitive act like guessing/planning/decision-making (about which we can conceive of an explanation entirely in terms of neurobiological processes, at least theoretically) and the conscious awareness of that act. This is because there is something that comes off as very weird about consciousness that warrants its own category of investigation.

But I will agree that, in humans, the two tend to correlate together (at least sometimes).

Suppose I tell you that I’m thinking of a number between one and ten, and I ask you to guess what it is. Can you make that guess without being aware that you’re making a guess?

Boru

It's possible yes, but that doesn't mean the possibility of it happening is within my control.

(January 16, 2023 at 1:01 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 12:35 pm)GrandizerII Wrote: Even in this case, I do believe we still need to make a distinction between a cognitive act like guessing/planning/decision-making (about which we can conceive of an explanation entirely in terms of neurobiological processes, at least theoretically) and the conscious awareness of that act. This is because there is something that comes off as very weird about consciousness that warrants its own category of investigation.

But I will agree that, in humans, the two tend to correlate together (at least sometimes).

Suppose I tell you that I’m thinking of a number between one and ten, and I ask you to guess what it is. Can you make that guess without being aware that you’re making a guess?

Boru

I can’t at the moment.   but I can make a computer do so without being aware of its own doing so, which indicate it is in principle possible.   Also, Blind sight suggest humans do have the capacity to excute complex behavior that normally involve consciousness without the participation of consciousness.    So that fact that humans don’t, does not necessarily mean humans, not just computers, can’t under any circumstances.

That participation of consciousness seems nearly ubiquitous in complex human behavior does not prove the participation of consciousness is essential to all these behavior.

(January 16, 2023 at 1:54 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 1:01 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Suppose I tell you that I’m thinking of a number between one and ten, and I ask you to guess what it is. Can you make that guess without being aware that you’re making a guess?

Boru

I can’t at the moment.   but I can make a computer do so without being aware of its own doing so, which indicate it is in principle possible.   Also, Blind sight suggest humans do have the capacity to excute complex behavior that normally involve consciousness without the participation of consciousness.    So that fact that humans don’t, does not necessarily mean humans, not just computers, can’t under any circumstances.

That participation of consciousness seems nearly ubiquitous in complex human behavior does not prove the participation of consciousness is essential to all these behavior.

It indicates nothing of the sort until you can build a computer that is demonstrably self-aware. To compare human self-awareness with a non self-aware computer is ridiculous, because computers are aware of nothing. It’s like saying that since you can hit any computer with a hammer without causing pain, you can do the same with any human.

Boru

(January 16, 2023 at 11:38 am)Angrboda Wrote:

(January 16, 2023 at 11:10 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: That would certainly apply if a person catching a ball did so with no sensation or memory of the event. One could catch a ball without subjective awareness, certainly, but the act of catching the ball can’t be anything but a subjective experience: the movement of your arm, the feeling of the ball striking your hand, the weight and texture of the ball - all of these sensations and the subsequent memory of the event qualify it as a subjective experience.

Boru

That's not at issue and is simply a red herring as it isn't required that those subjective elements of catching the ball play a causal role in actually catching the ball, and as such go nowhere in demonstrating that consciousness plays a causal role, which is what is at issue.  Like pain, it doesn't appear obvious that the aspects you mention perform a causal role in the behavior.  There is nothing about them that is inconsistent with epiphenominalism.   Indeed, those elements can be present in cases where no ball was caught.

I'll add a couple of points.

One, if being aware of the properties of an object in our environment is not required for predicting and accurately responding to that information, then it's not clear what, if any, causal role is being posited as belonging to consciousness.  In one form or another, if awareness isn't necessary for responding to some information about the environment correctly, then exactly what do non-epiphenomenalists propose consciousness is actually providing?

The second is a caveat to all the foregoing.  It occurs to me that most of this is predicated upon the notion that consciousness is both unified and singular in any given brain.  Experiments with split-brain patients significantly undermine this assumption in that they suggest that in split-brain patients, there may be multiple centers of the type of cognitions typically associated with consciousness.  Under this hypothesis, it's possible that consciousness is aware of the location of the ball in blindsight patients, just not that consciousness, or those parts of it, that are involved in reporting upon one's conscious experience.  In some hypotheses, that aspect of consciousness is purely confabulatory.  If that is the case, it becomes rather unclear what we actually mean by the term 'consciousness' if we have no reports from the parts of consciousness with causal cognitions and only reports from aspects of consciousness that play no causal role.

In response to One, and what drives these individual cells to process this information on a scale and ability as to create a unified center of awareness for themselves that 'increases their chances of survival'. They appear to me to be very 'intelligent' in this regard as every cell serves a specific purpose for a multi-cellular organism and works in a comparatively 'sentient' way that would leave one to wonder just exactly how they managed to form themselves into such a 'society' the high end of this synergy is sentience, that these 'creatures' which number in the trillions, are able to have one centralized cortex which relates to them pain, (the destruction of individual cells), that they might fight back against what caused that 'pain' is nigh unexplainable according to atheistic logic. You are not a singular entity... you are a plural... a magnificent conglomerate of entities, ie cells, which do not demand your attention with themselves, but rather as history would have it, flood your thoughts on why you exist at all. The end result for most of us is that there is a sentient entity, a supreme being, that created us following the laws of a universe which He created because that universe is His Body and has always existed, I've taken a poll on a Christian forum, the last Christian forum that I'm not banned from, and would you believe it? None of them believe in the Big Bang Theory.