Teuton wrote:

Davian wrote:
That in mind, I am not sure what to make of you quoting me out of context and proving a nonsensical comment.

What do you think is nonsensical about it?

Teuton wrote:

Davian wrote:
Tell me, Teuton, are there other animals that cease to exist when they fall asleep?

No.

Davian wrote:
The "I" was in the context of a discussion of dualism and the illusion of self as constructed by the brain as in the video in the same post. From which you inferred that this meant his body would disappear as he slept. Did you watch the video?

Oldskeptic wrote"
Scientism is usually a pejorative term as is cliche, why do you use them in regards to a simple observation that consciousness is the product of a physical process, and therefore within the remit of science? All physical entities and processes are within the remit of science.

Fade wrote:
Because you're making a scientific claim (that consciousness is the product of a physical process) in the complete absence of any evidence to support such a conclusion. You have nothing more than a belief that you're trying to fob off as accepted science, and that is scientism at worst, pseudo science at best.

Oldskeptic wrote:
There is no "out there vs in here." The human brain is an evolved biological machine that perceives and computes. Granted it is an extremely complicated machine, but that does not mean that it can't be studied or that study won't provide a good understanding of consciousness.

Fade wrote:
Gee, thoroughly refuted that one didn't you? I covered all this extensively when I explained how a perfect knowledge of brain functionality will still not be sufficient to explain consciousness. Where is your response to the details of that argument? Oh, there isn't one, just a response tantamount to 'I disagree, you're wrong, the end...' Great.

Fade wrote:
Try harder or don't try at all; and familiarise yourself with the hard problem of consciousness by David Chalmers as well - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_probl ... sciousness

Oldskeptic wrote:
Human like consciousness has to do with self-awareness and self-awareness has to do with being aware of internal states. Pain is an internal state. Absence of pain is an internal state. The pain happens at the location of the injury or condition. The pain is generally real. Burn your finger and the pain is in your finger, but your brain has evolved to a point were it is aware of where the pain is. When your tummy hurts the pain is in your tummy not your brain, but your brain is aware that the pain is in your tummy.

Fade wrote:
'Consciousness has to do with self-awareness and self-awareness has to do with being aware of internal states self-aware'. Surely you can see just how circular this is? I'm spinning in circles just reading it.

According to Damasio the primary evolutionary function of the animal brain was to serve as an integrative centre to monitor, coordinate and regulate the 'inner world' of a complex organism. Therefore the human brain, like the brains of other complex animals, receives on-line, continuously updated representations of the state of the body. These representations are mostly derived from sensory autonomic nerves from the inner organs and somatic nerves from muscles and skin, modified by hormonal chemical messages. They comprise the afferent or feedback arm of a feedback and control mechanism for monitoring, integrating and modulating the current 'state of the organism': internal viscera, skin, muscle, connective tissue, joints, blood chemistry and so on.

It seems likely that there is a region of the parietal lobe in the 'non-dominant' hemisphere of the cerebral cortex (ie. the side that does not have the language specialization - usually the right hand side) that is responsible for integrating information from body state feedback to create a continually updated representation of the body state. If this region is destroyed (for example when someone has a stroke affecting the right parietal lobe) they exhibit a phenomenon termed 'neglect' or anosognosia. The person becomes unaware of all or part of the left side of the body and visual field - that part controlled by the right cerebral hemisphere.

'Feelings' occur when body state representations in working memory indicate a change in body state in response to change in the environment. Hence, consciousness uses feedback concerning body states in order to evaluate perceptual inputs, by juxtaposing feelings with the perceptions that have preceded them. In other words, changes in the soma (body) are used to mark perceptions in WM. What is formed are perceptual-emotional representations - representations which encode information on both perceptual information and the body state that occurred in response. We might imagine a visual perception of an aggressive male as one representation and the emotion of terror as another representation - both active in WM at the same time. The SMM will combine these two representations to create a single representation (aggressive male-fear) that when it is activated in WM will elicit both recognition of the perception, and replaying of the emotion. -Bruce Charlton

Bruce Charlton wrote:
Perceptual-emotional representations evolved in order to deal particularly with social situations: consciousness is adapted to function as an aspect of social intelligence. In summery, the Somatic Marker Mechanism (SMM) evolved in order to evaluate social information and enable strategic social intelligence.

Oldskeptic wrote:
Nothing that exists naturally is outside the remit of science. The brain is a natural product of evolution, and so is the consciousness/self-awareness that it produces. If you want to go with some speculation that consciousness is some kind of supernatural thingy then be my guest, but you have no evidential support for it.

Fade wrote:
And you have no evidential support for your position, just baseless assumptions and beliefs. The difference is I'm honest and consistent; I admit my position is philosophical. For me to claim my position was one of science would be to insult science. I'll leave that one to you since you seem to be doing such a dandy job of it so far.

fade wrote:Oldskeptic your post smacks of the usual cliché scientism; bold baseless claims with the belief that science will one day be there to explain all things in purely objective, empirical terms. I love science, it has explained much and will explain much more through its methods; but I know its limitations as a discipline. It is not, never has been and never will be a catch all, be all, end all process. The very notion that the scientific process (in the classical objective empirical sense) has universal explanatory power is so arrogant and based on belief, assumption and faith it might as well be a religion in its own right.

Neuroscience absolutely will, in time (probably over the next few decades), develop of a complete simulated model of the human brain right down to the absolute finest of detail. Every neuron, every synapse, every dendrite, every axon fully mapped. Their purpose and effect fully detailed and catalogued. Everything will be known about the brain, every thought, feeling, emotion, idea and memory will be associated with their requisite physical associations. It will cease to be any sort of mystery or wonder, at least in its function. And yet the problem will remain, we will still each have an internal first person, introspective awareness of existence and even with our perfect understanding of brain function at that time, it will still be insufficient to account for consciousness.