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Starro wrote:Oh, and the 2 contradicting things thing, if god's omnipotent surely he and his actions could be a paradox? I'm guessing here, I don't know any to ask.
Starro wrote:Teuton, I don't think I have a particular problem with you using the word encoded.
Starro wrote:
I hope you're being humourous, otherwise, are you genuinely trying to disagree with me by saying ghosts exist? Like, really?
Starro wrote:I mean, there are things I do because some situation forces me to, rather than wanting to do it. Eg. giving speeches. I don't want to do them but outside factors put me in a situation where I have to get on with it and do it. I still have the choice of refusing my speech.
fade wrote:<snip>
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.
fade wrote:@fade: this reads like you are not up to speed on the other recent threads on this topic, so I will ask: Do you think of consciousness as a thing?
No.
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.
The association of brain activity with mental states is just that, an association. In the endeavour to understand consciousness it doesn't mean a thing. Correlation is not causation is a saying overused, but even if correlation was causation it would make no difference. If mental events are the product of brain events and brain events produce mental events the claim that they are one and the same still fails. We all know that are not the same thing because it is the most basic of logical common sense. Electrical impulses travelling along nerve cells is not pain. Commonly you'll hear, 'it produces pain'. Great, still doesn't answer the question of what pain is. Likewise air vibrations affecting hair cells in the cochlea and producing electrical impulses is not music. Molecules hanging in the air which are detected by the olfactory system is not smell. The former of these are processes, the later of these are experiences. Sure they correlate, sure the later is caused by the former, but no the former and the later are not the same thing.
So I have to wonder exactly what people are expecting in the scientific search for what consciousness is. What do you think is going to be found? How processes work? Sure. How experiences work? Forget it. The question makes no sense in the context of what science is and what science does. Science tests the world 'out there', consciousness is the world 'in here'; claiming that one can and will use science to bridge the gap between introspection and extrospection when the scientific method itself is fundamentally extrospective in nature is to expand the scope of science into areas in which it cannot be applied, or to put it another way, it's nothing but a lousy appeal to scientism.
I happily say, leave the world 'out there' to science and the world 'in here' to philosophy. Science will ultimately explain the world 'out there' some day, and in regards to the world 'in here' philosophy will piss in the wind until the end of time. In any event Descartes fundamentally had it right with the Cogito, you can always doubt the 'out there', but the world 'in here' is indisputable.
Oldskeptic wrote:
Consciousness is a product of a process that is entirely physical. It is not outside the remit of science.
Oldskeptic wrote:
But consciousness is being studied objectively by many people. You might want to read something like Steve Pinker's How the Mind Works before you go on with this line of argument, because this type of argument simply ignores what is being studied and what is being discovered.
Oldskeptic wrote:There is no "out there vs in here."
Teuton wrote:Oldskeptic wrote:There is no "out there vs in here."
I think mental phenomena are both 'out there' and 'in here' as psychophysical phenomena, i.e. they have both objective, 'heterophenomenal' and subjective, 'autophenomenal' aspects. There is no ontological gap between the mind and the body. Nature is One!
Teuton wrote:
I think mental phenomena are both 'out there' and 'in here' as psychophysical phenomena, i.e. they have both objective, 'heterophenomenal' and subjective, 'autophenomenal' aspects.
fade wrote:The question makes no sense in the context of what science is and what science does.
Panderos wrote:Fade, are you in agreement with UndercoverElephant? Because if so, I think we've been through this all before.
nunnington wrote:Science makes observations, and then constructs model/theories about those observations, which can be tested via further observations. However, to then go on and argue that these models are to do with reality or 'the world', is not a scientific claim, but a philosophical one, isn't it? In that sense, it is not falsifiable, except via logical means.
So I would venture to suggest that not only can science not describe first person consciousness (since it is couched in the third person), but it cannot describe reality, and in fact, does not set out to do that. It contains a methodology, not a metaphysics, and scientists in fact rarely speculate about the nature of reality, except in QM, where it seems inevitable.
Starro wrote:However, I was wondering why Fade seems to imply, from the comments about clay and the TV analogy, that humans get their consciousness from an outside source and that we are only vessels that received it (like the TV)? Have you got anything other than "it's subjective" to explain why you think this?
About consciousness. Yes, it's subjective, but I thought about this and I don't think it tells me much. The reason for this is that although they vary a little, our subjective experiences and reactions to similar situations tend to be very similar. I don't need to explain how people have things in common with each other and relate to each other. I don't think that experience is subjective is that significant?
Davian wrote:What if we only have the illusion of an internal first person?
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.
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.
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.
Sound, smell, light, and touch exist physically.
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:So this is the basic difference between me and most of the forum. You'll argue for the spontaneous generation of consciousness from inanimate matter which is about as bright as the long discredited theory of the spontaneous generation of life, while I argue that consciousness doesn't emerge because it is there, always was there and is fundamentally ubiquitous.
fade wrote:Oldskeptic wrote:<snip>
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.
And you have no evidential support for your position, just baseless assumptions and beliefs.
fade wrote: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.
Davian wrote:
Did the "I" making that claim (bolded) exist while your body slept last night?
Davian wrote:
That in mind, I am not sure what to make of you quoting me out of context and proving a nonsensical comment.
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