The mind begs the question

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Atla
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Sculptor1 wrote: April 30th, 2021, 3:17 pm
Atla wrote: April 30th, 2021, 12:39 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: April 30th, 2021, 12:31 pm
Atla wrote: April 30th, 2021, 12:25 pm The hallmark of the 21st century philosophical charlatan (like Dennett for example) is that he starts treating INFORMATION as this newly discovered magical substance, that can bridge explanatory gaps. Not quite physical, not quite mental either, somewhere in between, a bit of both, a bit of neither?

Anyway information.. information processing.. bits, computation, complexity... uhm magic, bum tsk, and now if I squint a little.. and there, we have phenomenal consciousness. Also, buy my new book about memes.

In real neuroscience, information is matter/energy. Electric impulses, firing synapses etc. all made of matter/energy. The same question remains, why would particular configurations of this be/create phenomenal consciousness?
I think most people, including Dennett know what information is, and what it can do.
But for yourself, I can see why you might think it is all spooky and magical.
Many people who share views similar to your own are still scared of the hard problem of consciousness, and you want magic to explain it, but serious people realise that we are only human and may never solve the consciousness question, and are satified with science which can never explain anything to people not willing to listen.
You'll just have to accept that what science does is not so much explain, but describe. It describes in such a way that demonstrates HOW.
If you want to know WHY then go to church and fill your brain with garbage. I undestand that many people find that satisfying.
As usual you have absolutely no idea what my views are.
No wonder
As usual you are only capable of confused gibberish.
Projecting as usual. Plus you compensate for your lack of intelligence with a **** personality. Does it bother you that you never had a single original thought, ever? :)
True philosophy points to the Moon
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Sculptor1
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 30th, 2021, 4:06 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: April 30th, 2021, 3:17 pm
Atla wrote: April 30th, 2021, 12:39 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: April 30th, 2021, 12:31 pm

I think most people, including Dennett know what information is, and what it can do.
But for yourself, I can see why you might think it is all spooky and magical.
Many people who share views similar to your own are still scared of the hard problem of consciousness, and you want magic to explain it, but serious people realise that we are only human and may never solve the consciousness question, and are satified with science which can never explain anything to people not willing to listen.
You'll just have to accept that what science does is not so much explain, but describe. It describes in such a way that demonstrates HOW.
If you want to know WHY then go to church and fill your brain with garbage. I undestand that many people find that satisfying.
As usual you have absolutely no idea what my views are.
No wonder
As usual you are only capable of confused gibberish.
Projecting as usual. Plus you compensate for your lack of intelligence with a **** personality. Does it bother you that you never had a single original thought, ever? :)
I have many and varied orignal thoughts constantly.
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Faustus5
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 28th, 2021, 1:40 am You have no idea what you're talking about. The GNW models human consciousness in a functional way, but it doesn't touch the problem of why there is phenomenal consciousness at all.
Literally the only sense in which phenomenal consciousness can be said to exist at all is in terms of its functional properties. Anything else is just mythical, magical nonsense.
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Faustus5 wrote: May 2nd, 2021, 9:57 amLiterally the only sense in which phenomenal consciousness can be said to exist at all is in terms of its functional properties. Anything else is just mythical, magical nonsense.
Conscious states aren't just causal-functional black boxes with a particular input-output, stimulus-response profile, since they also have some qualitative experiential content or other, in virtue of which they are conscious states rather than nonconscious ones.

QUOTE>
"To have a painfully burned finger is not just to encode burned-finger information, to initiate burn-soothing behavior, and to encode in an imperfect apprehension that both of these processes have occurred. It is also to suffer a burning hurtfulness."

(Campbell, Keith. Body and Mind. 2nd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. p. 124)
<QUOTE
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Faustus5
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: May 2nd, 2021, 12:08 pm Conscious states aren't just causal-functional black boxes with a particular input-output, stimulus-response profile, since they also have some qualitative experiential content or other, in virtue of which they are conscious states rather than nonconscious ones.
The distinction between functional properties and "qualitative experiential content" is utterly and completely meaningless to me. They are one and the same.
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Faustus5 wrote: May 5th, 2021, 7:27 am
Consul wrote: May 2nd, 2021, 12:08 pmConscious states aren't just causal-functional black boxes with a particular input-output, stimulus-response profile, since they also have some qualitative experiential content or other, in virtue of which they are conscious states rather than nonconscious ones.
The distinction between functional properties and "qualitative experiential content" is utterly and completely meaningless to me. They are one and the same.
You do understand the Campbell quote above, don't you?
The causes and effects of experiences (provided they aren't epiphenomenal and have effects) are one thing, and how it feels or what it is like to undergo them is another thing. The latter is what I mean by "qualitative experiential content". Campbell's and my point is that it is not the case that experiential properties are nothing but functional properties.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Faustus5
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:49 am
The causes and effects of experiences (provided they aren't epiphenomenal and have effects) are one thing, and how it feels or what it is like to undergo them is another thing.
I don't think that distinction is entirely clear, either. It's complicated to the point where I truly think all of these things are really quite tangled up with one another. In other words, I think it is a mistake to believe that on one hand, we have various causal events going on, then we have a "qualitative experiential content" which those causes initiate, and then we have consequent effects of the "qualitative experiential content". Or at least, at certain time scales (very short ones), all three completely overlap.
Consul wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:49 am Campbell's and my point is that it is not the case that experiential properties are nothing but functional properties.
If we are going to locate experiential properties as part of the natural world and neither magic nor epiphenomenal, what else could they be but functional (i.e. information processing) properties of the nervous system? What work are they doing that isn't covered under that conceptual umbrella?
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Faustus5 wrote: May 7th, 2021, 4:14 pm
Consul wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:49 am The causes and effects of experiences (provided they aren't epiphenomenal and have effects) are one thing, and how it feels or what it is like to undergo them is another thing.
I don't think that distinction is entirely clear, either. It's complicated to the point where I truly think all of these things are really quite tangled up with one another. In other words, I think it is a mistake to believe that on one hand, we have various causal events going on, then we have a "qualitative experiential content" which those causes initiate, and then we have consequent effects of the "qualitative experiential content". Or at least, at certain time scales (very short ones), all three completely overlap.
In my understanding of causation (with it interpreted as the manifestation of dispositions or powers), causes and effects aren't temporally separated in the sense that the effect begins after the cause has ended. There is a temporal overlap in the sense that the beginning or start of an event which is a cause (or causing) is simultaneous with the beginning or start of its effect. The causing of an experience is simultaneous with the experiencing.
Faustus5 wrote: May 7th, 2021, 4:14 pm
Consul wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:49 am Campbell's and my point is that it is not the case that experiential properties are nothing but functional properties.
If we are going to locate experiential properties as part of the natural world and neither magic nor epiphenomenal, what else could they be but functional (i.e. information processing) properties of the nervous system? What work are they doing that isn't covered under that conceptual umbrella?
From my materialistic point of view, all functional properties have material realizers—in the sense that for every functional property F in system S there is some material property M which performs F's function in S.

Correspondingly, I think all experiential properties are constituted by structural neural (electrochemical) properties of (certain parts of) central nervous systems, with those neural ("neuroexperiential") properties also being realizers and performers of certain organismal and behavioral functions (causal roles).
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: May 7th, 2021, 7:05 pmCorrespondingly, I think all experiential properties are constituted by structural neural (electrochemical) properties of (certain parts of) central nervous systems, with those neural ("neuroexperiential") properties also being realizers and performers of certain organismal and behavioral functions (causal roles).
Dynamic structural properties of the CNS are neural mechanisms, and there is a general distinction between causal or productive mechanisms and compositional or constitutive ones.
My view is that the neural mechanisms of experiences are compositional or constitutive ones, and that composition or constitution entails identity: A non-productive, constitutive neural mechanism of an experience is the experience itself rather than just a cause of it.
("x causes y" entails "x is different from y", because self-causation is impossible.)
However, causations (causal processes) do take place within constitutive mechanisms as well in the form of interactions between their elements. But a constitutive mechanism as a whole doesn't cause or produce what it constitutes, because it is what it constitutes.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Faustus5
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: May 7th, 2021, 7:05 pm From my materialistic point of view, all functional properties have material realizers—in the sense that for every functional property F in system S there is some material property M which performs F's function in S.

Correspondingly, I think all experiential properties are constituted by structural neural (electrochemical) properties of (certain parts of) central nervous systems, with those neural ("neuroexperiential") properties also being realizers and performers of certain organismal and behavioral functions (causal roles).
Then I think we agree on everything that ultimately matters and any differences are largely semantic. At least that's my current position after reading this from you.
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