Why All Current Scientific Theories Of Consciousness Fail

[SteveKlinko]

But eventually I realized that the Brain is where our Sub Conscious processes happen and it is not even really Conscious at all. ... I have come to understand that the more important part of our Minds is in the Conscious Experience aspect.

Our nonconscious minds are non-conscious by definition. Of course it's not conscious. But then you say that consciousness is the "more" (most?) important part of our minds? It could be so, but equally, it might not be. You seem quite sure of your conclusions. I wonder if your confidence is justified, or just wishful thinking?

As I always say, nobody knows anything for sure, and everything is still on the table when it comes to Consciousness. One thing I can say is that I don't Wish the answer to be anything. I just want to know what the actual answer is. One thing I am sure of is that saying Conscious Experience is an Illusion is not the answer. Also, I think that if people would stop and think about the Conscious Experiences in and of themselves, they would discover that their Conscious Experiences are really all that they Are, and all that Matters.

Pick a Conscious Experience like Redness and study it in your Mind. Look at Red things during the day and be aware of the Redness of the things. Then realize that the Redness is not of the things but is created by your Brain/Mind somehow. Then realize that if that Redness is created by your Brain/Mind then that the Redness itself is part of what you are because you are your Brain/Mind. You are all the Colors of the Conscious Light that makes up the Conscious Visual Experience that is always there embedded in the front of your face. You are that Conscious Light. You have your Light and we all have our own Light. It's such a simple chain of Logic and almost nobody realizes it. I think that there may be many people with very Dim light or no Light at all.

[Pattern-chaser]

As I always say, nobody knows anything for sure, and everything is still on the table when it comes to Consciousness. One thing I can say is that I don't Wish the answer to be anything. I just want to know what the actual answer is.

OK, so you don't know, just like the rest of us. Fair enough. Nothing to dispute about that...

One thing I am sure of is that saying Conscious Experience is an Illusion is not the answer.

...and yet you already know what the answer is not??? Our conscious experience could be illusory. The probability that this is so, we cannot compute. But it's possible. The best-known explanation for such a thing is that we are brains in vats. Not likely, we think? Possibly so. But we don't know.

My only point in this discussion is that it's premature to jump to any conclusions, when we know so little. Just that.

[Consul]

Why do you imply that the only alternative to global workspace theory is dualism?

I don't! My point in my previous post is that the famous Mary thought experiment doesn't provide a sound argument for property dualism.

IIT is the only logical game in town IMO. The general concept makes sense. That is, some matter is alive and conscious and some is not. So the answers to both abiogenesis and the hard problem of consciousness must lie in morphology and chemical configuration.

IIT's panpsychistic implications are highly implausible; and one can argue against its central hypothesis that integrated information = consciousness that it is untestable in principle, and that there is no logico-semantic connection between integrated information and consciousness, so that one doesn't contradict oneself conceptually by saying there is integrated information in X but no consciousness.

[Consul]

Here's an example of what neuroscience is already capable of doing:

QUOTE>
"End-to-End Deep Image Reconstruction From Human Brain Activity:

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have recently been applied successfully to brain decoding and image reconstruction from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity. However, direct training of a DNN with fMRI data is often avoided because the size of available data is thought to be insufficient for training a complex network with numerous parameters. Instead, a pre-trained DNN usually serves as a proxy for hierarchical visual representations, and fMRI data are used to decode individual DNN features of a stimulus image using a simple linear model, which are then passed to a reconstruction module. Here, we directly trained a DNN model with fMRI data and the corresponding stimulus images to build an end-to-end reconstruction model. We accomplished this by training a generative adversarial network with an additional loss term that was defined in high-level feature space (feature loss) using up to 6,000 training data samples (natural images and fMRI responses). The above model was tested on independent datasets and directly reconstructed image using an fMRI pattern as the input. Reconstructions obtained from our proposed method resembled the test stimuli (natural and artificial images) and reconstruction accuracy increased as a function of training-data size. Ablation analyses indicated that the feature loss that we employed played a critical role in achieving accurate reconstruction. Our results show that the end-to-end model can learn a direct mapping between brain activity and perception."

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00021/full
<QUOTE

But Science has known for a hundred years that there is a mapping between Brain activity and Conscious Experience. The thing Science cannot do is measure the actual Conscious Experience of any Observer.

The possibility of image reconstruction from human brain activity goes far beyond mere psychophysical correlations: Just by observing and measuring objective neural processes, neuroscientists can reconstruct visual percepts of conscious subjects. This confirms that those percepts or sense-data aren't just correlated with, but constituted by information-encoding patterns of neural activity.

[SteveKlinko]

As I always say, nobody knows anything for sure, and everything is still on the table when it comes to Consciousness. One thing I can say is that I don't Wish the answer to be anything. I just want to know what the actual answer is.

OK, so you don't know, just like the rest of us. Fair enough. Nothing to dispute about that...

One thing I am sure of is that saying Conscious Experience is an Illusion is not the answer.

...and yet you already know what the answer is not??? Our conscious experience could be illusory. The probability that this is so, we cannot compute. But it's possible. The best-known explanation for such a thing is that we are brains in vats. Not likely, we think? Possibly so. But we don't know.

My only point in this discussion is that it's premature to jump to any conclusions, when we know so little. Just that.

Conscious Experience is so real to me that it is just Incoherent to think it is an Illusion, with all the baggage that Illusionism would imply. You obviously Experience the Illusion and the Illusion can help you move around in the world without bumping into things (the Illusion of Vision). It's all just semantics to say it is an Illusion. The Conscious Visual Experience serves the Evolutionary purpose of letting you See and avoid predators. The Conscious Visual Experience is the final stage and culmination of all the Visual Processing.

[SteveKlinko]

Here's an example of what neuroscience is already capable of doing:

QUOTE>
"End-to-End Deep Image Reconstruction From Human Brain Activity:

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have recently been applied successfully to brain decoding and image reconstruction from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity. However, direct training of a DNN with fMRI data is often avoided because the size of available data is thought to be insufficient for training a complex network with numerous parameters. Instead, a pre-trained DNN usually serves as a proxy for hierarchical visual representations, and fMRI data are used to decode individual DNN features of a stimulus image using a simple linear model, which are then passed to a reconstruction module. Here, we directly trained a DNN model with fMRI data and the corresponding stimulus images to build an end-to-end reconstruction model. We accomplished this by training a generative adversarial network with an additional loss term that was defined in high-level feature space (feature loss) using up to 6,000 training data samples (natural images and fMRI responses). The above model was tested on independent datasets and directly reconstructed image using an fMRI pattern as the input. Reconstructions obtained from our proposed method resembled the test stimuli (natural and artificial images) and reconstruction accuracy increased as a function of training-data size. Ablation analyses indicated that the feature loss that we employed played a critical role in achieving accurate reconstruction. Our results show that the end-to-end model can learn a direct mapping between brain activity and perception."

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00021/full
<QUOTE

But Science has known for a hundred years that there is a mapping between Brain activity and Conscious Experience. The thing Science cannot do is measure the actual Conscious Experience of any Observer.

The possibility of image reconstruction from human brain activity goes far beyond mere psychophysical correlations: Just by observing and measuring objective neural processes, neuroscientists can reconstruct visual percepts of conscious subjects. This confirms that those percepts or sense-data aren't just correlated with, but constituted by information-encoding patterns of neural activity.

Let's take an engineering analysis approach where we trace the path of Light perception. The first thing that happens is that Physical Light (PL) enters the Eye and is focused onto the Retina. The instant the PL hits the Retina it activates the Rods and Cones. Various wavelengths of PL will preferentially activate various different Rods and Cones. The PL is absorbed by the Rods and Cones and the PL is no longer PL. What is left is an avalanche of chemical reactions that eventually fires a Neuron that sends a signal away from the Retina and to the Visual Areas (VAs) of the Cerebral Cortex. This happens for millions of Neurons at the same time with the signal from each Neuron bundled into the Optic Nerve. It’s a long journey from the Retina through the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) of the Thalamus and to the Visual Areas which are located in the back of the head. During this whole trip from Eye to the VAs we are not dealing with PL anymore but rather this is of course Neural Light (NL). The NL signals eventually arrive at the first Visual Area (V1) get processed and are then sent to the second Visual Area (V2) and on to other Visual Areas V3, V4, V5, and more. All the areas also send signals back to previous Areas to create a giant mish mash of parallel processing that is difficult to completely quantify. All the processing and feedback is also NL since it is correlated with the PL. So, all we can really say is that we Experience NL not PL. We know when this NL happens that CL happens. The CL cannot be found in the Brain, and maybe someday it will be found there. But for now, we can only speculate that it is in some other Realm or Dimension or Space. I say CL is in Conscious Space (CSp). We can then speculate that there must be a Conscious Mind (CM) that exists in CSp, that is experiencing the CL. A similar argument can be made if we trace the path of Physical Sound (PS) to Neural Sound (NS) and then to Conscious Sound (CS).

[Consul]

Let's take an engineering analysis approach where we trace the path of Light perception. The first thing that happens is that Physical Light (PL) enters the Eye and is focused onto the Retina. The instant the PL hits the Retina it activates the Rods and Cones. Various wavelengths of PL will preferentially activate various different Rods and Cones. The PL is absorbed by the Rods and Cones and the PL is no longer PL. What is left is an avalanche of chemical reactions that eventually fires a Neuron that sends a signal away from the Retina and to the Visual Areas (VAs) of the Cerebral Cortex. This happens for millions of Neurons at the same time with the signal from each Neuron bundled into the Optic Nerve. It’s a long journey from the Retina through the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) of the Thalamus and to the Visual Areas which are located in the back of the head. During this whole trip from Eye to the VAs we are not dealing with PL anymore but rather this is of course Neural Light (NL). The NL signals eventually arrive at the first Visual Area (V1) get processed and are then sent to the second Visual Area (V2) and on to other Visual Areas V3, V4, V5, and more. All the areas also send signals back to previous Areas to create a giant mish mash of parallel processing that is difficult to completely quantify. All the processing and feedback is also NL since it is correlated with the PL. So, all we can really say is that we Experience NL not PL. We know when this NL happens that CL happens. The CL cannot be found in the Brain, and maybe someday it will be found there. But for now, we can only speculate that it is in some other Realm or Dimension or Space. I say CL is in Conscious Space (CSp). We can then speculate that there must be a Conscious Mind (CM) that exists in CSp, that is experiencing the CL. A similar argument can be made if we trace the path of Physical Sound (PS) to Neural Sound (NS) and then to Conscious Sound (CS).

The subjective "realm or dimension or space" of phenomenal consciousness isn't "transcerebral", let alone supernatural/hyperphysical. Phenomenal space and phenomenal time are realized within the physical space and the physical time of the brain. The conscious mind with its experiential contents (sensations, emotions, or imaginations) is wholly part of the brain, being a distinctive high-level type of neural (neuroinformational) organization.

Of course, even if subjective experiences are constituted by and thus identical to complexes of objective and externally perceptible neural processes, there is still a qualitative perceptual difference between e.g. your seeing a red tomato and my seeing the neural process which is your seeing a red tomato. For experiencing and internally perceiving a red-impression is certainly qualitatively different from externally perceiving the experiencing of a red-impression that takes place in your brain. As opposed to your seeing of a red tomato, my seeing of your seeing of a red tomato doesn't or needn't involve any red-impressions. But it doesn't follow that there is a numerical difference between the object of my external perception, viz. some neural process, and your internally perceived experiential content, e.g. some red-impression.

A neural process which is an undergoing of a red-impression certainly doesn't look red to external observers—unless red is intentionally used in the context of technological neuroimaging to represent aspects of the neural process. But what looks red then are parts of the image or picture of the neural process rather than the neural process itself, which may not be directly visible to the natural eye.

If experiences are neural processes, you cannot internally perceive your experiences as neural processes, and I cannot externally perceive the neural processes in your brain as experiences; but this perspective-relative (1st person vs. 3rd person) perceptual difference doesn't amount to an existential (ontological) difference, and to a confirmation of dualism (antireductionism) about subjective experience.

[Consul]

The real problem neuroscientists have is to reductively explain and to successfully predict subjective experiences in terms of neurological mechanisms. If the consciousness-constituting mechanisms are identified, and their structures and functions are completely described and explained, then there is no hard problem left. For then there is no point anymore in asking "Why is this neural process experienced subjectively at all?" and "Why is this neural process experienced subjectively in this way rather than that way?", because these will ultimately be brute facts of nature defying any further explanation.

[Sy Borg]

Why do you imply that the only alternative to global workspace theory is dualism?

I don't! My point in my previous post is that the famous Mary thought experiment doesn't provide a sound argument for property dualism.

It's not supposed be an argument for property dualism, which is why I asked the question. It only makes clear that gaining information is not the same as qualia, that knowing is not the same as being.

IIT is the only logical game in town IMO. The general concept makes sense. That is, some matter is alive and conscious and some is not. So the answers to both abiogenesis and the hard problem of consciousness must lie in morphology and chemical configuration.

IIT's panpsychistic implications are highly implausible; and one can argue against its central hypothesis that integrated information = consciousness that it is untestable in principle, and that there is no logico-semantic connection between integrated information and consciousness, so that one doesn't contradict oneself conceptually by saying there is integrated information in X but no consciousness.

On the contrary, integrated information - the general idea, not the precise theory - is the only possible naturalistic explanation. Otherwise there is only panpsychism. There is something about the configuration of some matter that makes it conscious, while other matter is apparently not conscious. The answer seemingly lie in the structure of the matter, how its information is integrated.

Global workspace also assumes that integration, but its advocates believe that the level of information integration that brings consciousness/mentality only occurs in brains of certain complexity.

[Consul]

The real problem neuroscientists have is to reductively explain and to successfully predict subjective experiences in terms of neurological mechanisms. If the consciousness-constituting mechanisms are identified, and their structures and functions are completely described and explained, then there is no hard problem left. For then there is no point anymore in asking "Why is this neural process experienced subjectively at all?" and "Why is this neural process experienced subjectively in this way rather than that way?", because these will ultimately be brute facts of nature defying any further explanation.

"The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?"

Source: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

First of all, the very formulations of these questions smell like dualism. For if x is "accompanied by" y, then x is different from y (isn't it?); and if x "generates (produces)" y, then x is different from y (isn't it?).

Anyway, even given these biased formulations, there are trivial answers to the questions:

1. Some physical processes are accompanied by experience, simply because it's a brute fact of nature that they do.

2. A given physical process generates the specific experience it does, simply because it's a brute fact of nature that it does.

[Consul]

Anyway, even given these biased formulations, there are trivial answers to the questions:

1. Some physical processes are accompanied by experience, simply because it's a brute fact of nature that they do.

…that they are (not that they do)!

[Consul]

My point in my previous post is that the famous Mary thought experiment doesn't provide a sound argument for property dualism.

It's not supposed be an argument for property dualism, which is why I asked the question.

Yes, of course it is:

"The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being. It is one of the most discussed arguments against physicalism."

Qualia: The Knowledge Argument: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

[Consul]

On the contrary, integrated information - the general idea, not the precise theory - is the only possible naturalistic explanation. Otherwise there is only panpsychism. There is something about the configuration of some matter that makes it conscious, while other matter is apparently not conscious. The answer seemingly lie in the structure of the matter, how its information is integrated.

There is no doubt that consciousness has a lot to do with information processing—but not with any type of information processing in any type of physical system. Consciousness depends not only on asemantic, nonrepresentational (purely causal or instructional) information in the form of meaningless physical or chemical signals, but also and mainly on semantic, representational information in the form of genuine signs with semantic properties (meaning, reference) as used by brained animals (only). That is, the type of information necessary for consciousness is semantic neural information (in the form of neural representations); so there is no slippery slope to panpsychism. Consciousness belongs to and remains within the animal kingdom!

[Sy Borg]

My point in my previous post is that the famous Mary thought experiment doesn't provide a sound argument for property dualism.

It's not supposed be an argument for property dualism, which is why I asked the question.

Yes, of course it is:

"The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being. It is one of the most discussed arguments against physicalism."

Qualia: The Knowledge Argument: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

I don't think the entry was worded well. "Non-physical" is a loaded term, its semantic implying dualism, as you noted. However, that adds an assumption to a proposition.

I think less controversial wording would be more appropriate: "The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves properties that are not yet understood".

[Consul]

"The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being. It is one of the most discussed arguments against physicalism."

Qualia: The Knowledge Argument: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

I don't think the entry was worded well. "Non-physical" is a loaded term, its semantic implying dualism, as you noted. However, that adds an assumption to a proposition.
I think less controversial wording would be more appropriate: "The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves properties that are not yet understood".

But that's not the ontological conclusion drawn by its defenders, which is clearly antiphysicalistic:

"What Mary discovered about color experiences is meant to apply to conscious experiences generally. The lesson Jackson wants you to take away is that being consciously aware of something is to be in a state of mind with a particular sort of qualitative character, a character utterly unlike the character of material bodies – including the brain. Your only access to conscious qualities is through your experiencing them first hand. This feature of conscious qualities places them outside the physical domain.
Taking Jackson seriously means taking dualism seriously."

(Heil, John. Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2013. p. 170)