Consciousness

[Alan V]

Most people's minds are so simplistic that it might as well be a monkey crashing cymbals in their head 24/7. Nothing complex about it.

Minds and brains aren't the same thing.

We depend on a huge range of amazing but unconscious brain functions which automatically run our bodies, process our perceptions, construct our sentences so we can express our thoughts, drive our habits, control our sleep cycles and dreaming, and so on.  Consciousness is just one function among many others, though it performs an executive function of monitoring and guiding many of those unconscious processes.  Consciousness would be nothing without them, helpless and meaningless.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Minds and brains aren't the same thing.

We depend on a huge range of amazing but unconscious brain functions which automatically run our bodies, process our perceptions, construct our sentences so we can express our thoughts, drive our habits, control our sleep cycles and dreaming, and so on.  Consciousness is just one function among many others, though it performs an executive function of monitoring and guiding many of those unconscious processes.  Consciousness would be nothing without them, helpless and meaningless.

Tell that to @Ahriman; he's the one conflating minds and brains.

[Alan V]

We depend on a huge range of amazing but unconscious brain functions which automatically run our bodies, process our perceptions, construct our sentences so we can express our thoughts, drive our habits, control our sleep cycles and dreaming, and so on.  Consciousness is just one function among many others, though it performs an executive function of monitoring and guiding many of those unconscious processes.  Consciousness would be nothing without them, helpless and meaningless.

Tell that to @Ahriman; he's the one conflating minds and brains.

I consider these group discussions.

You made the main point.  I just added some details.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Brain is to mind as car is to driving. If the first is damaged enough, the second ceases to be.

Boru

[Alan V]

Another interesting detail about unconscious brain functions is the vast amount of information encoded in the brain, which we can consciously access so easily (at least most of the time).

[GrandizerII]

Here is my argument:

P1) Everything is physical
P2) Consciousness certainly exists
C1) Therefore consciousness is physical
P3) There can be no radical emergence
P4) If there can be no radical emergence then consciousness can't emerge from total non-consciousness.
C2) Therefore, consciousness can't emerge from total non-consciousness
P5) If Consciousness can't emerge from total non-consciousness, and consciousness certainly exists and is physical, then physicality must fundamentally be experiential
C3)  Therefore, physicality must fundamentally be experiential
P6) If physicality must fundamentally be experiential then panpsychism is true
C4)  Therefore, Panpsychism is true

You could basically use this same argument to argue for idealism, but maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean by physicality fundamentally being experiential.

[GrandizerII]

Minds and brains aren't the same thing.

We depend on a huge range of amazing but unconscious brain functions which automatically run our bodies, process our perceptions, construct our sentences so we can express our thoughts, drive our habits, control our sleep cycles and dreaming, and so on.  Consciousness is just one function among many others, though it performs an executive function of monitoring and guiding many of those unconscious processes.  Consciousness would be nothing without them, helpless and meaningless.

As always, people using key words in different senses. There's consciousness in the functional sense (where it's basically information processing) and there's consciousness in the phenomenological sense (which is what I believe the OP is centered on).

[The Grand Nudger]

Is that accurate though? Is consciousness different from information processing? Model based control theories would beg to differ. Perhaps we've mistakenly believed in the uniqueness and separateness of our subjectivity.

Perhaps minds are brains, and brains are processors, and processing is a material reaction. Perhaps all sorts of seeming bio automata possess it in kind, if not in quality. Maybe it isn't limited to living things at all. Would that make it fundamental? Maybe not, but far more basic than we've supposed, I suspect.

[Ahriman]

Is that accurate though?  Is consciousness different from information processing?  Model based control theories would beg to differ.  Perhaps we've mistakenly believed in the uniqueness and separateness of our subjectivity.

Perhaps minds are brains, and brains are processors, and processing is a material reaction.  Perhaps all sorts of seeming bio automata possess it in kind, if not in quality.  Maybe it isn't limited to living things at all.  Would that make it fundamental?  Maybe not, but far more basic than we've supposed, I suspect.

That's what I'm saying, it isn't complex at all, thinking it's complex is arrogant and stupid.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Is that accurate though?  Is consciousness different from information processing?  Model based control theories would beg to differ.  Perhaps we've mistakenly believed in the uniqueness and separateness of our subjectivity.

Perhaps minds are brains, and brains are processors, and processing is a material reaction.  Perhaps all sorts of seeming bio automata possess it in kind, if not in quality.  Maybe it isn't limited to living things at all.  Would that make it fundamental?  Maybe not, but far more basic than we've supposed, I suspect.

That's what I'm saying, it isn't complex at all, thinking it's complex is arrogant and stupid.

Calling people "stupid" because they don't agree with you is pretty arrogant too.