consciousness?

[Question Mark]

1. It is likely that it was created because we have never found evidence of cards, or three-story houses, occurring naturally.
2. This is certainly not true of consciousness.

My main argument was not about the evidence of the cards themselves, but rather how they are arranged, i.e. in an organized state. Organization is the key word here, not cards or three-story houses. For example, if you see some cards lying flat on the floor in a disorganized state, you would automatically deduce that it was most likely caused by an accident or by an action with little conscious effort. But, if you saw the same set of cards arranged in the shape of a house (especially considering how they are balanced on top of each other), you would automatically think that most likely there was a plan and a conscious effort behind that arrangement, not an accident.

So what is wrong with extending that same logic to the existence of consciousness as well as our eyes, brains, hearts, intelligence, DNA, etc.?

The problem with applying recognition of design to things like consciousness, eyes, hearts, &c., is that in your card example, we have no known examples of a house of cards being built naturally. Every single example of a house of cards is known by evidence to have been built.
Consciousness however, eyes, brains, hearts, &c., have never been seen to be created, they've only ever been seen to develop through natural means.

We don't recognise design through inductive reasoning in the manner you're suggesting when it comes to recognising design, we recognise design by contrasting things we see with previous examples.
We have no examples of card houses being made naturally. We have no examples of a consciousness being created. Therefore we deduce that both come about from intelligence, and natural means respectively.

In order to say that a consciousness or any other natural thing comes about by intelligent design, one has to demonstrate it, not just say "Well it looks designed".
That's absurd.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If that was true then all the medication in the world would not be able to help you treat depression.

In order for psychoactive drugs to work it is only necessary to affect the way the brain mediates consciousness. You have a long way from there to saying that physical processes generate or cause physical experiences. Right now, the best that can be said is that there is a correlation between neural activity and Felt experience since there is no evidence for a causal link.

(re: telephones) The absence of required redundancy within the network to make it conscious and self-aware.

Suppose the redundant system was not one brain but two. You call a friend to tell him about an idea. Information is relayed across the wire to your friend. Then you forget your idea. Later your friend calls you back and reminds you of the idea. The question is this: are the two brains part of a single consciousness processing entity. If so, then an extremely large, say worldwide, communication network such as exists to today, acts as a single consciousness process of which parts of it are self-aware. (we're talking about it right now). Viola! super- or cosmic consciousness. (this is known as the Chinese telephone thought problem).

...books lack the required mechanism to access their own information.

Books serve as a more rustic version of information storage for the telephonic superconsciousness.

Yesterday I saw a traffic signal turn red and all the cars stopped. Did I see a thought happen?

You would have if you had been looking for it - i.e. scanning the brains of the drivers.

used this example in order to show that the electrical impulse of the zebra fish was an observed physical event that resulted in physical activity. There is no proof that the zebra fish felt anything at all. No body saw a thought, as the poster claimed, only the result of one. Brain scans would only relocate the problem. Your only things you can observe are physical correlates, not causes. Correlates can be the basis of a reasonable assumption that thought did occur, however in the absence of a theory of causation it is just that, an assumption and not proof. And since that same assuption justifies the belief in absurd positions, like attributing consciousness to simple systems which we have no reason to believe are conscious, that assumption is suspect. In other words, its not nearly as reasonable an assumption as you would like to believe.

Actually, proving it is very simple. People who have their brains removed are not conscious.

Your example proves nothing because it begs the question. Removing the indicator of consciousness does not mean consciousness has ceased. If you remove the hands of a clock that doesn't mean the inside gears have stopped working.

[genkaus]

In order for psychoactive drugs to work it is only necessary to affect the way the brain mediates consciousness. You have a long way from there to saying that physical processes generate or cause physical experiences. Right now, the best that can be said is that there is a correlation between neural activity and Felt experience since there is no evidence for a causal link.

On the contrary, that is the evidence of the causal link. If there was simply correlation between the two and not causation, then psychoactive drugs would not affect your consciousness. For example, simple observations of the fact that Oxytocin levels are high in people in love would simply indicate correlation. But a causal link may be established by artificially increasing the hormone levels and seeing if it produces the emotions and feelings of love where they did not exist beforehand.

Your excuse that we can't establish a causal link unless we completely understand the phenomena is bullshit. I don't understand how my laptop works either, but when I see that pressing the power button turns it on, I do not conclude that there is no causal link between the two events.

Suppose the redundant system was not one brain but two. You call a friend to tell him about an idea. Information is relayed across the wire to your friend. Then you forget your idea. Later your friend calls you back and reminds you of the idea. The question is this: are the two brains part of a single consciousness processing entity. If so, then an extremely large, say worldwide, communication network such as exists to today, acts as a single consciousness process of which parts of it are self-aware. (we're talking about it right now). Viola! super- or cosmic consciousness. (this is known as the Chinese telephone thought problem).

Did you misunderstand the China brain problem? It is not about the number of participatory neurons but their arrangement and functionality. You can have the entire collective humanity exchanging and sharing information, but without the requisite systems in place to create an identity it would not be self-aware or conscious. Your example is like saying that since piling on a bunch of brain matter into a heap does not give rise to a conscious entity, there must be something special and non-material about the phenomenon of consciousness.

Books serve as a more rustic version of information storage for the telephonic superconsciousness.

What telephonic super-consciousness?

used this example in order to show that the electrical impulse of the zebra fish was an observed physical event that resulted in physical activity. There is no proof that the zebra fish felt anything at all. No body saw a thought, as the poster claimed, only the result of one. Brain scans would only relocate the problem. Your only things you can observe are physical correlates, not causes. Correlates can be the basis of a reasonable assumption that thought did occur, however in the absence of a theory of causation it is just that, an assumption and not proof. And since that same assuption justifies the belief in absurd positions, like attributing consciousness to simple systems which we have no reason to believe are conscious, that assumption is suspect. In other words, its not nearly as reasonable an assumption as you would like to believe.

Like indicated before, establishing a causal link isn't as difficult as you make it out to be. Look up deep brain stimulation and its application to depression and Tourrette's syndrome.

Your example proves nothing because it begs the question. Removing the indicator of consciousness does not mean consciousness has ceased. If you remove the hands of a clock that doesn't mean the inside gears have stopped working.

There is a very easy way for you to find this out for yourself, you know.

You seem the problem is, it is your position that is inherently biased. You start with the assumption that any consciousness is an ineffable , supernatural entity that can, without any explanation as to how, affect physical phenomena. Then you go on to ignore the mountain of evidence showing that the reverse is true all the while insisting that "you can't prove I'm wrong". You are the one with the biased position and incapable of change in face of mounting evidence.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Your excuse that we can't establish a causal link unless we completely understand the phenomena is bullshit.

That’s not exactly what I’ve been trying to say so I must not be presenting my ideas clearly enough. The thrust of my critique is this. Your position does not allow you to distinguish between the idea that physical events CAUSE felt experience and the idea that physical events ARE felt experiences.

What I am saying is this. There are specific features of the world that we associate with the mind. And there are specific, but different features of the world that we associate with the brain.

This is true because we can talk about the inner life of the mind without making any reference to the brain or its functioning. Likewise we can talk about the brain and its physical functions with never a reference to the mind, so much so that felt experience has no reason for happening. You can supply neither a functional purpose for felt experience nor a reason why it should happen at all. Your position dismisses the importance of the most salient feature of the world, the feeling of being alive. It ends any need for inquiry into the relationship between mind and matter, by assuming only matter is important. And what is worse, it creates a schism between what you believe about life and how you actually live it.

Your example proves nothing because it begs the question. Removing the indicator of consciousness does not mean consciousness has ceased. If you remove the hands of a clock that doesn't mean the inside gears have stopped working.

There is a very easy way for you to find this out for yourself, you know.

Yes, I look forward to that day though I will not hasten the process. The Lord has more work for me to do and challenges to face.

You are the one with the biased position and incapable of change in face of mounting evidence.

In actuality I have modified my position since I last participated in the forums, but I have not presented anything definite because I’m still thinking about it. In the meantime I only offer a critique of the belief that physical processes cause experiences. Or that it is an illusion. Both of which were presented as viable theories.

[genkaus]

That’s not exactly what I’ve been trying to say so I must not be presenting my ideas clearly enough. The thrust of my critique is this. Your position does not allow you to distinguish between the idea that physical events CAUSE felt experience and the idea that physical events ARE felt experiences.

You seem to be fighting a phantom of your own making. You are the only one who has been talking about the brain-identity. The thrust of your critique misses its mark since no one here has argued that "physical events ARE felt experiences".

What I am saying is this. There are specific features of the world that we associate with the mind. And there are specific, but different features of the world that we associate with the brain.

This is true because we can talk about the inner life of the mind without making any reference to the brain or its functioning. Likewise we can talk about the brain and its physical functions with never a reference to the mind, so much so that felt experience has no reason for happening.

There are specific features of the world we associate with software and specific, but different features we associate with hardware. We can talk about the working of programs and applications and memory storage without making reference to hardware and we can talk about storage devices and RAMs and motherboards and their functions with never a reference to even the operating system being used, so much that apparently the software has no reason for happening. Are you now going to argue that essentially, computer software exists independently from the hardware?

You can supply neither a functional purpose for felt experience nor a reason why it should happen at all.

That's because,
a) you never asked this question
b) you assume there is a purpose behind felt experience
and c) the reason has already been explained via functionalism.

Your position dismisses the importance of the most salient feature of the world, the feeling of being alive.

Does it? How?

It ends any need for inquiry into the relationship between mind and matter, by assuming only matter is important.

Can you point out exactly where I made that assumption?

And what is worse, it creates a schism between what you believe about life and how you actually live it.

Actually, it removes any schism. What I believe about life is in line with how I live it.

Yes, I look forward to that day though I will not hasten the process. The Lord has more work for me to do and challenges to face.

Why don't you try taking charge of your own life for once?

In actuality I have modified my position since I last participated in the forums, but I have not presented anything definite because I’m still thinking about it.

Your arguments say it all. You may say that you have changed your position, but your arguments still come from the same premises.

In the meantime I only offer a critique of the belief that physical processes cause experiences.

Scroll up to the very first thing you said in this post. Your statement was that the thrust of your critique was that "Your position does not allow you to distinguish between the idea that physical events CAUSE felt experience and the idea that physical events ARE felt experiences."

It seems you are confused as to what you are criticizing in the first place. You also, apparently, fail to understand the implications of your own statements.

That physical processes cause experience is a fact. It can be as simplistic as me punching you (a physical process) causing you pain (an experience). It can be a complicated as induced changes in brain chemistry causing different feelings or experiences. What you really want to argue against is the idea that physical processes are the same as experiences, but you can't because no one said that in the first place.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The thrust of your critique misses its mark since no one here has argued that "physical events ARE felt experiences".

Fair enough. Then you must be arguing that felt experiences are physical events. Or have I missed something?

Are you now going to argue that essentially, computer software exists independently from the hardware?

So by analogy, computer hardware causes software?

Why don't you try taking charge of your own life for once?

I believe I freely chose and will be held accountable for my choices. In contrast, a deterministic physical event has no control or culpability for its result. Any one that asserts that life is a purely physical event is basically saying they have no control over their life.

[genkaus]

Fair enough. Then you must be arguing that felt experiences are physical events. Or have I missed something?

You have missed something.

So by analogy, computer hardware causes software?

Yes.

I believe I freely chose and will be held accountable for my choices.

Then your god's plan should have no relevance to your life.

In contrast, a deterministic physical event has no control or culpability for its result. Any one that asserts that life is a purely physical event is basically saying they have no control over their life.

You just jump from one strawman to another, don't you? Saying that life is a purely physical event does not mean that there is no control over life.

[downbeatplumb]

http://www.michaelshermer.com/2012/07/au...lies-mind/

The hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness, however, has vastly more evidence for it than the hypothesis that consciousness creates the brain. Damage to the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe, for example, causes face blindness, and stimulation of this same area causes people to see faces spontaneously. Stroke-caused damage to the visual cortex region called V1 leads to loss of conscious visual perception. Changes in conscious experience can be directly measured by functional MRI, electroencephalography and single-neuron recordings. Neuroscientists can predict human choices from brain-scanning activity before the subject is even consciously aware of the decisions made. Using brain scans alone, neuroscientists have even been able to reconstruct, on a computer screen, what someone is seeing.
Thousands of experiments confirm the hypothesis that neurochemical processes produce subjective experiences. The fact that neuroscientists are not in agreement over which physicalist theory best accounts for mind does not mean that the hypothesis that consciousness creates matter holds equal standing.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Professor Plumb, you have only restated an argument already made, adding only that an authority shares your opinion. The tacit assumption of his concluding remarks is that no causal mechanism between brain-processes and mind-processes is required because one is the same as the other.

…neurochemical processes produce subjective experiences.

Meanwhile his next sentence injects a straw man into this debate:

…the hypothesis that consciousness creates matter (does not) hold equal standing (as physicalist theories do)

Mind creating matter has not been part of this discussion. No one denies the intimate connection between minds and brains. The authority you cited does not actually address the full relationship between mental events and brain events. He only looks for efficient causes and observes only third-party physical facts. Empirical study of the brain takes for granted the formal relationships, logical relations, and assigned values (all immaterial) that allow us to feel, think about, and will to act upon what we observe.

In the example you provided, physical events produce both physical and mental effects. Following the initial physical cause you get both a second physical event and mental one. Now you have two potential causes, one mental and the other physical, for the next in line physical event and its associated mental one. This means one of the following:

1. Mental properties are side-effects without causal import. This means the feeling of being alive, making choices, and contemplating ideas have no power. And because mental processes are inert they can have neither function nor use.

2. A pre-existing harmony exists between mind-states and brain-states. This creates two parallel chains of causation that co-exist but do not interact.

But there is a third option that atheists refuse to consider and dismiss out-of-hand, because that is one that undermines their materialist worldview.

3. Causation, broadly defined, goes both ways. Mental causes inform physical effects, just as physical causes constrain mental effects.

Because this third option does not restrict causality to one direction, from physical cause to mental effect, it allows the possibility of interaction between two real and distinct realities, a materially substantial one and an immaterial formal one.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is true because we can talk about the inner life of the mind without making any reference to the brain or its functioning.

Really? Care to provide an example? I think you might mean that you can avoid actually mentioning the brain or its function when you talk about the "inner life of the mind" - not that the reference isn't there, regardless of whether or not you choose to acknowledge it. I can talk about a car race without mentioning combustion too. That's not very impressive.

I'm not sure why all the debate is actually required on this one, can't you just produce a disembodied consciousness, or "mind" with no brain? I think that would definitively settle it in your favor, don't you? If your idea of an "intimate connection" that no one denies makes the one indistinguishable from the other - I'm gonna go ahead and go with the one we can actually produce, personally. I see no reason to invoke your spirit mind or whatever you like to think of it as, when the one in hand handles the job without the added baggage of extraneous assumption.