Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[The Grand Nudger]

Why leapfrog over the brain? Is there some problem with it..some reason we go 1....2.......4.......? Have you ever seen any disembodied or brainless sentient energy? Something tells me that that missing 3 might deserve a little more consideration.

[Rhondazvous]

Heheh, I settle for something far less than proof, which is why I didn't ask for proof, just pass and fail conditions.  So don't sweat it.  I agree on 1 and 2 (somewhat), the third not so much, but for purposes of discussion, consider them all in.    

A lightbulb or campfire does not interpret or even respond to stimuli. It can be affected by it, say when wind blows a fire, but that’s not a response.

We're already in trouble......as these failure conditions are for campfires, not your conjecture....ignoring that, you didn't reference them in 1, 2, or 3........perhaps you'll need to add a 4th? Otherwise, campfires and lightbulbs are still in.

Something like - 4: Awareness is interpretation or response to stimuli
(you can probably already see where I'm going to go......you ready to accept the sentience of everything I might care to dredge up?  I'm very creative, in that regard...lol)

Ah, $4 could be the touchstone. If we postulate that lightbulbs and campfires don't interpret stimulis. But I see that I must correct something here. The lightbulb is just a physical body. We're talking about the electricity that runs through the bulb.

If we apply a GC style re-interpretation of the word "interpret," yeah we could probably include earthworms.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Just a physical body" is also not handled in 1, 2, or 3 - course....I could say that the human is just the physical body as well....and so not sentient.  I don't think that's the sort of objection you want to have to uphold.  It also begs the question. Again, just to remind you, I don't require proof, so - begging the question isn't too much of an issue so long as it isn't proof you hope to offer.

I'm going to go even weirder and more absurd than earthworms, btw, just waiting to see what you pull the trigger on for 4, or if 1, 2 and 3 are good as they stand. Still though, more important to me than any of this..is how I am to determine the difference between sentient energy and non-sentient energy after simply accepting, for purposes of conversation, that "sentient energy" exists. You don't actually have to argue it in. We can just start there, that there's "sentient energy". How do we proceed -from there-? There must be "non-sentient" energy, because you aren't giving the campfires and lightbulbs sentience. How do I know when I've spotted "non-sentient" energy...if I knew that, I could determine what sentient energy was and where it was located or what possessed or facilitated it, without even knowing where to look. It would be incredibly useful criteria. It's the failure condition, for when energy is just, well...energy.

[Rhondazvous]

Why leapfrog over the brain?  Is there some problem with it..some reason we go 1....2.......4.......?  Have you ever seen any disembodied or brainless sentient energy?  Something tells me that that missing 3 might deserve a little more consideration.

Because the brain is just a physical organ. Without the electrical impulses it flat lines and therefore cannot be sentient.

[The Grand Nudger]

You keep saying just, and that's "just" begging the question.  Again, ever seen sentience persist -after- the flatline? Even, as Ive said, for purposes of discussion..granting the sentient energy, that still doesn't rule out the brains involvement. Those impulses and chemical signals might "just' be what the brain does...after all. That is our current understanding, btw, that the impulses and chemicals are the signal traces, the means of moving data along the lines. Even if the energy itself provides sentience, and not the manner in which it manipulates the various components.........that manipulation still occurs, and sentience is present when it does, but not when it doesn't...so far as we can tell. There's a dependence or relationship there -at the least. Remember, the campfire isn't sentient, the light from the bulb, nor the bulb (both, ultimately, made of energy) aren't sentient. So energy doesn't simply, by virtue of being energy, satisfy your 1, 2 and 3 (or possible 4). Nor does the brain, by virtue of being an organ..also ultimately made of energy, get itself ruled out by 1, 2...or 3.

At present your theory looks to be undemonstrable, unfalsifiable, and inconsistent.....not good signs. Lets make the third go away, and make the first two appear, or at least get closer to that ideal situation?

[Whateverist]

Why leapfrog over the brain?  Is there some problem with it..some reason we go 1....2.......4.......?  Have you ever seen any disembodied or brainless sentient energy?  Something tells me that that missing 3 might deserve a little more consideration.

Because the brain is just a physical organ. 

https://youtu.be/7GXrc-4M8js

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, Whatevs.  Nah, we could still be dealing with sentient energy, just that it requires or uses the brain to present itself in the fashion we observe as "human consciousness".  Body-as-receiver.  Though, that would be troubling for the notion of non-sentient campifires and lightbulbs.  Because perhaps it isn't that the campfire energy isn't the same type of energy, sentient energy, it just lacks the proper receiver to present itself in a manner recognizable to us as sentience, consciousness, what have you...but that sort of turns the sentience business back around to being more dependent on the receiver, the brain or body, than the energy itself, at least insofar as we could perceive it - which is all that matters when it comes to proving or demonstrating something. I'm not sure the mind is so easily separated from the body as by using the word "just" - regardless. The brain might "just" be an organ.....but it's doing something pretty damned amazing either way, it's very clearly part of the equation.

The question has been posed before....how does something like alcohol affect "sentient energy"? We can see (and even experience for ourselves) that it does...but whats the hook?

Hey....there's a damn fine experiment we could all do regarding sentience/consciousness, whatever..that we don't need to be nuerosurgeons to perform. Let's get intoxicated.....FOR SCIENCE!!!

[Whateverist]

Energy vs matter, if only they could be consolidated somehow. Of course there is chemical as well as electrical energy taking place in the brain. No doubt all that stuff is important. I mean you can barely start yanking out bits of the brain before some functions start shutting down.

[Rhondazvous]

You keep saying just, and that's "just" begging the question.  Again, ever seen sentience persist -after- the flatline? Even, as Ive said, for purposes of discussion..granting the sentient energy, that still doesn't rule out the brains involvement.  Those impulses and chemical signals might "just' be what the brain does...after all.  That is our current understanding, btw, that the impulses and chemicals are the signal traces, the means of moving data along the lines.  Even if the energy itself provides sentience, and not the manner in which it manipulates the various components.........that manipulation still occurs, and sentience is present when it does, but not when it doesn't...so far as we can tell.  There's a dependence or relationship there -at the least.  Remember, the campfire isn't sentient, the light from the bulb, nor the bulb (both, ultimately, made of energy) aren't sentient.  So energy doesn't simply, by virtue of being energy, satisfy your 1, 2 and 3 (or possible 4).  Nor does the brain, by virtue of being an organ..also ultimately made of energy, get itself ruled out by 1, 2...or 3.

At present your theory looks to be undemonstrable, unfalsifiable, and inconsistent.....not good signs.  Lets make the third go away, and make the first two appear, or at least get closer to that ideal situation?

your argument rests on the assumption that just because the energy that flows through a light bulb is not sentient therefore the energy that flows through the brain is not sentient either. That is a non sequitur. I have shown that those impulses do indeed meet the criteria 1-4.

[Rhondazvous]

Because the brain is just a physical organ. 

https://youtu.be/7GXrc-4M8js

I can't understand the words in this video.