Is consciousness an illusion?

[Sculptor1]

It is to me an absurd proposition that flies against everything we have thus far understood about reality.
It seems you are trying to impose a "soul" into the equation, but this is absurd.
It would imply that each time a new living thing were born some sort of magical event takes place and the neural matter is invaded by an incorporeal force, which as magically departs upon death.
This would have to be true for every organism that seems to have the quality of consciousness.
It's just another way of clinging to a series of out-of-date beliefs from a time when the function of the brain was utterly unknown.
It's a theory so ridiculous that it is simply unworthy of consideration.
Baby gets infected with a fairy which leaves when the organism dies.
If there were not a primitive assumption of a spirit inhabiting the meat and bones then you would not even be thinking this way. There is no merit to the suggestion.

A hundred years ago there was an understandable enthusiasm to think that Consciousness was on the verge of being understood when they first discovered that Neural Activity was Correlated with Conscious Experience. In that hundred years, Science has made huge progress in understanding the Neural Activity that is Correlated with Conscious Experience. But after a hundred years of trying, Science has not been able to show how Conscious Experience is in the Neurons or Emerges from the Neurons.

I do not agree.

In fact, the more and more Science learned about Neurons it seemed less and less likely that the Conscious Experience was in the Neurons. It is precisely because Science knows so much about the Neurons that we must begin to think that the expectation that Consciousness is in the Neurons must not be right.

False. Please demonstrate.

This is because Science has exactly Zero understanding about Conscious Experience yet huge understanding about Neurons.

By that rubric. No human endeavour has anything to say about anything.
Science is descriptive. There never can be any ultimate explanations concerning the nature of reality, but off all human efforts science has produced the ONLY valid results.
There is no point throwing the baby out with the bath water because without science their is nothing of any value from any other place to replace the amazing progress that has been made.

I think about the Conscious Experiences themselves and realized that it was Naive to think that these non Physical Phenomena could ever be in the Neurons. How is Redness going to come from the Neurons? How is the Standard A Tone going to come from the Neurons? How is the Salty Taste going to come from the Neurons? First of all don't be afraid to consider something like Redness and just admit at least to yourself that there does not seem to be any way Redness is in the Neurons. These Conscious Experiences are Magical and if you can't see that then you are in denial. The job of Science should be to take the Magic out of Conscious Experiences and Explain them. The Physicalist approach to sweep Conscious Experience under the rug is crumbling under the weight of the reality of the pure Ignorance of Conscious Experience by Science. Science need a new perspective. What could it be? Here is what I propose: https://theintermind.com/#ConnectionPerspective

There is nothing of any value here, just second hand mysticism, parasitic on good science.

Hang in there, Keeper of the last Century Physicalist Dogma. You will eventually come into the 21st Century of Science, and you will be embarrassed by your past arrogant and Insulting ways. Open your Mind to new possibilities!

An ad hominem is not an argument.

[Sculptor1]

This is ambiguous.

I mean, mind and physical body are inseparable, always were and always will be.
This includes newborns.

We are in agreement.
It is a characteristic of neural matter that it generates an energetic field that results in consciousness.
It is not simply correlation. It is an essential quality of the brain and other neural matter in the body which is the consciousness.
Ultimately this is going to be mysterious.
But then so is gravity and other basic and simply understood facts about the universe. We can only ever really describe these mysterious forces such as magnetism, or gravity. There are no ultimate explanations. But explanations tend to work best when they comply with Ockham's razor.
So magnetism is magical to a child having never seen it before. And we can describe the arrangement of the iron molecules, in some detail. But the big "why" is always just pushed further away, never answered. But what would be absurd it to pretend the god of magnets monitors the activity and pushes magnets together.
With gravity there is no reasonable explanation as to why all matter in the universe has the tendency to move towards all other matter in the galaxy. But would it makes sense to say that "god" is continually trying to counter the BB and re-join all matter?
I do not know why people are disappointed with the massive advances in neuroscience, and all it has uncovered. Maybe they have a desperate need to keep mysticism alive in their lives?

As far as we know a thought event always correlates with a mind event and vice versa. This is not the same as to claim a thought event is identical to or reducible to an extension event.

Sometimes it's more useful to think of a mind-brain event in terms of thought and sometimes it's more useful to think of the same mind-brain event in terms of extension. An example of this is clinical practice where the clinician can reassure, listen, empathise or ask the patient to reason or introspect, or the clinician can administer medication.Or on occasions both of those approaches.

Your comment seems to add nothing.
A clinician reassuring a patient is still making physical causalities, just as assuredly as a drug is.
As each word heard corresponds to meanings encoded in the neural tissue of the patient, and just as any learning or other experience is a continuous modification of the cognitive network, such mind changing is still physical, and in my view more likely to bring relief, as human contact is also responded to by a host of hormonal changes; we might call comradeship, companionship, etc. It's a shame that a clinician is not also able to make physical contact too, as we all know how that feels.

[SteveKlinko]

A hundred years ago there was an understandable enthusiasm to think that Consciousness was on the verge of being understood when they first discovered that Neural Activity was Correlated with Conscious Experience. In that hundred years, Science has made huge progress in understanding the Neural Activity that is Correlated with Conscious Experience. But after a hundred years of trying, Science has not been able to show how Conscious Experience is in the Neurons or Emerges from the Neurons.

I do not agree.

In fact, the more and more Science learned about Neurons it seemed less and less likely that the Conscious Experience was in the Neurons. It is precisely because Science knows so much about the Neurons that we must begin to think that the expectation that Consciousness is in the Neurons must not be right.

False. Please demonstrate.

This is because Science has exactly Zero understanding about Conscious Experience yet huge understanding about Neurons.

By that rubric. No human endeavour has anything to say about anything.
Science is descriptive. There never can be any ultimate explanations concerning the nature of reality, but off all human efforts science has produced the ONLY valid results.
There is no point throwing the baby out with the bath water because without science their is nothing of any value from any other place to replace the amazing progress that has been made.

I think about the Conscious Experiences themselves and realized that it was Naive to think that these non Physical Phenomena could ever be in the Neurons. How is Redness going to come from the Neurons? How is the Standard A Tone going to come from the Neurons? How is the Salty Taste going to come from the Neurons? First of all don't be afraid to consider something like Redness and just admit at least to yourself that there does not seem to be any way Redness is in the Neurons. These Conscious Experiences are Magical and if you can't see that then you are in denial. The job of Science should be to take the Magic out of Conscious Experiences and Explain them. The Physicalist approach to sweep Conscious Experience under the rug is crumbling under the weight of the reality of the pure Ignorance of Conscious Experience by Science. Science need a new perspective. What could it be? Here is what I propose: https://theintermind.com/#ConnectionPerspective

There is nothing of any value here, just second hand mysticism, parasitic on good science.

Hang in there, Keeper of the last Century Physicalist Dogma. You will eventually come into the 21st Century of Science, and you will be embarrassed by your past arrogant and Insulting ways. Open your Mind to new possibilities!

An ad hominem is not an argument.

When your position is: There is nothing of any value here, just second hand mysticism, parasitic on good science.
Then Ad Hominem is what you deserve, because you have obviously not put any effort into understanding what I am saying.
If you don't understand a particular aspect, then I would be happy to work with you.
But it is my own fault for trying to engage discussion with you again.
I would say we are again at an Impasse.
Bye to you.

[stevie]

Is consciousness an illusion?

That depends. "consciousness" is merely a concatenation of characters: "c+o+n+s+c+i+o+u+s+n+e+s+s". So the question should be "Is what your brain constructs upon seeing "c+o+n+s+c+i+o+u+s+n+e+s+s" an illusion?
Since I can only speak referring to my brain the answer is "no" but since I cannot speak referring to other brains that answer may not be clarifying anything with reference to what the initiator's brain synthesized when typing "consciousness".

[Sculptor1]

I do not agree.

False. Please demonstrate.

By that rubric. No human endeavour has anything to say about anything.
Science is descriptive. There never can be any ultimate explanations concerning the nature of reality, but off all human efforts science has produced the ONLY valid results.
There is no point throwing the baby out with the bath water because without science their is nothing of any value from any other place to replace the amazing progress that has been made.


There is nothing of any value here, just second hand mysticism, parasitic on good science.

Hang in there, Keeper of the last Century Physicalist Dogma. You will eventually come into the 21st Century of Science, and you will be embarrassed by your past arrogant and Insulting ways. Open your Mind to new possibilities!

An ad hominem is not an argument.

When your position is: There is nothing of any value here, just second hand mysticism, parasitic on good science.
Then Ad Hominem is what you deserve, because you have obviously not put any effort into understanding what I am saying.
If you don't understand a particular aspect, then I would be happy to work with you.
But it is my own fault for trying to engage discussion with you again.

The solution to that is obvious enough

I would say we are again at an Impasse.
Bye to you.

I understand perfectly.
Just like any fantasy it is best received when it is at least internally coherent. Lord of the Rings achieved that, but your ideas like the Bible do not cohere

[Belindi]

I mean, mind and physical body are inseparable, always were and always will be.
This includes newborns.

We are in agreement.
It is a characteristic of neural matter that it generates an energetic field that results in consciousness.
It is not simply correlation. It is an essential quality of the brain and other neural matter in the body which is the consciousness.
Ultimately this is going to be mysterious.
But then so is gravity and other basic and simply understood facts about the universe. We can only ever really describe these mysterious forces such as magnetism, or gravity. There are no ultimate explanations. But explanations tend to work best when they comply with Ockham's razor.
So magnetism is magical to a child having never seen it before. And we can describe the arrangement of the iron molecules, in some detail. But the big "why" is always just pushed further away, never answered. But what would be absurd it to pretend the god of magnets monitors the activity and pushes magnets together.
With gravity there is no reasonable explanation as to why all matter in the universe has the tendency to move towards all other matter in the galaxy. But would it makes sense to say that "god" is continually trying to counter the BB and re-join all matter?
I do not know why people are disappointed with the massive advances in neuroscience, and all it has uncovered. Maybe they have a desperate need to keep mysticism alive in their lives?

As far as we know a thought event always correlates with a mind event and vice versa. This is not the same as to claim a thought event is identical to or reducible to an extension event.

Sometimes it's more useful to think of a mind-brain event in terms of thought and sometimes it's more useful to think of the same mind-brain event in terms of extension. An example of this is clinical practice where the clinician can reassure, listen, empathise or ask the patient to reason or introspect, or the clinician can administer medication.Or on occasions both of those approaches.

Your comment seems to add nothing.
A clinician reassuring a patient is still making physical causalities, just as assuredly as a drug is.
As each word heard corresponds to meanings encoded in the neural tissue of the patient, and just as any learning or other experience is a continuous modification of the cognitive network, such mind changing is still physical, and in my view more likely to bring relief, as human contact is also responded to by a host of hormonal changes; we might call comradeship, companionship, etc. It's a shame that a clinician is not also able to make physical contact too, as we all know how that feels.

But sometimes a doctor will not prescribe any mind-altering medication and will prescribe a thought regime such as cognitive behavioural therapy(CBT). Sometimes a doctor will understand there is something amiss , not with the patient's understanding or life circumstances, but with his brain in which case medication is prescribed.
As I said, it's counter-productive to ascribe every event to physical causes. To do so as a historiographer a physicalist(materilaist) would record wars and economic systems but omit cultural influences in man's past. Imagine writing up Nazi Germany without mentioning Hitler's directly influencing thoughts and intentions.

[Sculptor1]

We are in agreement.
It is a characteristic of neural matter that it generates an energetic field that results in consciousness.
It is not simply correlation. It is an essential quality of the brain and other neural matter in the body which is the consciousness.
Ultimately this is going to be mysterious.
But then so is gravity and other basic and simply understood facts about the universe. We can only ever really describe these mysterious forces such as magnetism, or gravity. There are no ultimate explanations. But explanations tend to work best when they comply with Ockham's razor.
So magnetism is magical to a child having never seen it before. And we can describe the arrangement of the iron molecules, in some detail. But the big "why" is always just pushed further away, never answered. But what would be absurd it to pretend the god of magnets monitors the activity and pushes magnets together.
With gravity there is no reasonable explanation as to why all matter in the universe has the tendency to move towards all other matter in the galaxy. But would it makes sense to say that "god" is continually trying to counter the BB and re-join all matter?
I do not know why people are disappointed with the massive advances in neuroscience, and all it has uncovered. Maybe they have a desperate need to keep mysticism alive in their lives?

As far as we know a thought event always correlates with a mind event and vice versa. This is not the same as to claim a thought event is identical to or reducible to an extension event.

Sometimes it's more useful to think of a mind-brain event in terms of thought and sometimes it's more useful to think of the same mind-brain event in terms of extension. An example of this is clinical practice where the clinician can reassure, listen, empathise or ask the patient to reason or introspect, or the clinician can administer medication.Or on occasions both of those approaches.

Your comment seems to add nothing.
A clinician reassuring a patient is still making physical causalities, just as assuredly as a drug is.
As each word heard corresponds to meanings encoded in the neural tissue of the patient, and just as any learning or other experience is a continuous modification of the cognitive network, such mind changing is still physical, and in my view more likely to bring relief, as human contact is also responded to by a host of hormonal changes; we might call comradeship, companionship, etc. It's a shame that a clinician is not also able to make physical contact too, as we all know how that feels.

But sometimes a doctor will not prescribe any mind-altering medication and will prescribe a thought regime such as cognitive behavioural therapy(CBT). Sometimes a doctor will understand there is something amiss , not with the patient's understanding or life circumstances, but with his brain in which case medication is prescribed.
As I said, it's counter-productive to ascribe every event to physical causes. To do so as a historiographer a physicalist(materilaist) would record wars and economic systems but omit cultural influences in man's past. Imagine writing up Nazi Germany without mentioning Hitler's directly influencing thoughts and intentions.

I do not disagree with this, except the bizarre descent into the "hitler argument".
Your reflection does not deny the physicality of consciousness, since a thought regime is also essentially another means of changing the "physical" memories, thoughts, and understandings, because that is what the brain is all about; energetic matter.

[The Beast]

The door within the door and so on to the baseline. For there is a baseline unless something comes from nothing. As the fractal reality is an anatomical feature of the brain, I may go further and speculate a fractal reality in the quantum foam therefore in the manifold of any good string theory or any mass acquisition by the mechanism. It is that the fractal quality is maintained as supported by anatomical evidence. The hypothetical dimension or baseline dimension might have correspondence in the anatomical manifold…and why not, this corresponds to a numinous/baseline quantitative content. I might prompt the rainbow, but I might not be responsible for the quality of the rainbow since this is dependent on the quality of the fractals/air. It must also be the case that the rainbow happens anyway.
Is there any fundamental difference in the ideas as they point to some evolving power dimensionality, or they are just colors of the rainbow.? It is a distinguishable metaphysical vs illusory (not real) theory.

The Beast writes "----unless something comes from nothing---". (My highlight)

A more precise way to write 'comes from' is 'caused by'. Everything is caused except for the ultimate uncaused substance .There either is or is not an uncaused ontic substance which exists apart from consciousnesses. If there be no ultimate uncaused substance there is ultimate chaos not ultimate substance.

We don't have to call the uncaused substance "God". We can call the uncaused substance "nature" or "ontic reality" or "existence itself" or "necessity". The monogod is a personification of the uncaused substance.

Personification.

Personification means "giving human qualities to an abstract idea," as in a movie villain who is the personification of evil.

I cannot comment on The Beast's message in total as I don't understand its main import.

“The reference of a proper name is the object it means or indicates” I was pointing to a bimodal process. The objectivation by the senses is also the sensibility of the personification. The objectivation might have a signifier and the sensibility is a matter of degrees and in this case dialectical plasticity. In a more constricted form, I might say somebody coming from nothing as opposed to something. Somebody might be sensible, and I could have used “caused by” and like in “what is necessary” the cause is a thought, and the relevance is the misunderstanding as intentional and non-subjective since it was a naïve reference. Surely, there is the position of mental objects, mental states and Frege’s sense. I think mental state but, with my outmost respect to your “de dicto”.

Classical physics vs quantum physics. There is a possibility in quantum physics for A to cause B as is that B causes A. Therefore, the word causation is abandoned for correlation. As is correlation of matter and consciousness.

[Belindi]

The door within the door and so on to the baseline. For there is a baseline unless something comes from nothing. As the fractal reality is an anatomical feature of the brain, I may go further and speculate a fractal reality in the quantum foam therefore in the manifold of any good string theory or any mass acquisition by the mechanism. It is that the fractal quality is maintained as supported by anatomical evidence. The hypothetical dimension or baseline dimension might have correspondence in the anatomical manifold…and why not, this corresponds to a numinous/baseline quantitative content. I might prompt the rainbow, but I might not be responsible for the quality of the rainbow since this is dependent on the quality of the fractals/air. It must also be the case that the rainbow happens anyway.
Is there any fundamental difference in the ideas as they point to some evolving power dimensionality, or they are just colors of the rainbow.? It is a distinguishable metaphysical vs illusory (not real) theory.

The Beast writes "----unless something comes from nothing---". (My highlight)

A more precise way to write 'comes from' is 'caused by'. Everything is caused except for the ultimate uncaused substance .There either is or is not an uncaused ontic substance which exists apart from consciousnesses. If there be no ultimate uncaused substance there is ultimate chaos not ultimate substance.

We don't have to call the uncaused substance "God". We can call the uncaused substance "nature" or "ontic reality" or "existence itself" or "necessity". The monogod is a personification of the uncaused substance.

Personification.

Personification means "giving human qualities to an abstract idea," as in a movie villain who is the personification of evil.

I cannot comment on The Beast's message in total as I don't understand its main import.

“The reference of a proper name is the object it means or indicates” I was pointing to a bimodal process. The objectivation by the senses is also the sensibility of the personification. The objectivation might have a signifier and the sensibility is a matter of degrees and in this case dialectical plasticity. In a more constricted form, I might say somebody coming from nothing as opposed to something. Somebody might be sensible, and I could have used “caused by” and like in “what is necessary” the cause is a thought, and the relevance is the misunderstanding as intentional and non-subjective since it was a naïve reference. Surely, there is the position of mental objects, mental states and Frege’s sense. I think mental state but, with my outmost respect to your “de dicto”.

Classical physics vs quantum physics. There is a possibility in quantum physics for A to cause B as is that B causes A. Therefore, the word causation is abandoned for correlation. As is correlation of matter and consciousness.

You don't even need to mention physics. Inductive reasoning is the way all animals that have memories and can learn do their reasoning. Correlation and statistical significance is a refinement of common sense. 'Causation' is a posh word for how to use common sense.

[The Beast]

It may be that illusion is correlated with absence of something. There might not be a complete description of consciousness and therefore an absence of description and if we apply the same proof of the absence of the highest prime number, I might conclude with there is consciousness evolving towards the highest form in a possible emergence to add to the knowledge of consciousness. So, there is consciousness with the absence of completion. In the scale of completion there might be a metaphor or illusion.

[Belindi]

It may be that illusion is correlated with absence of something. There might not be a complete description of consciousness and therefore an absence of description and if we apply the same proof of the absence of the highest prime number, I might conclude with there is consciousness evolving towards the highest form in a possible emergence to add to the knowledge of consciousness. So, there is consciousness with the absence of completion. In the scale of completion there might be a metaphor or illusion.

Certainly there is always an "absence of something" when we inductively reason. This is because we aren't omnipotent.

Statistics and statistics theory are used as aids to inductive reasoning. Consciousness does not imply omniscience. If you choose to do so you can have faith in evolution towards omniscience but I would not agree with you.

[Jacob10]

The individual experiences the in and out of the moment (or in and and out of synch) consciousness states.The individual is not those consciousness states however.The individual can deliberately choose which of these two consciousness states that they wish to reside and think within in any given moment and can alter the consciousness state experienced by introducing psychological CONTROL.This is how we know that atheistic claims that individuals don’t exist is incorrect because you need to exist to be able to introduce that CONTROL.

[Jacob10]

The consciousness experience is directly affected by balanced vibratory electromagnetic fields.

[Jacob10]

The individual experiences both the in the moment (+) and out of the moment (-) consciousness states.

We are neither of these consciousness states.

We merely “toggle” backwards and forwards between these two consciousness state all the time either in awareness or unawareness.

You can only introduce psychological CONTROL of the consciousness states if you are aware of the “toggling” effect of consciousness.Otherwise you will “toggle” in unawareness with no psychological CONTROL.

The vast majority do the latter.

[Lagayscienza]

Maybe consciousness is an illusion. But it's a compelling one.

Whilst consciousness may not be necessary for all organisms, it's hard to imagine how humans could do all they do without it.