Let's talk consciousness.

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Agent Smyth
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Never send a man to do a machine's job. 8)
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Sy Borg
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 12:49 am From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Sense and response?

The meta awareness of sensing and responding?

Both?
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Agent Smyth
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Sy Borg wrote: March 25th, 2023, 1:12 am
Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 12:49 am From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Sense and response?

The meta awareness of sensing and responding?

Both?
Have you ever attended a meditation seminar, assuming there are such things? Were you served the meat 'n' potatoes or was that not on the menu?

Senses are an integral feature of awareness; not sure about response though. However, there seems to be a missin' piece in this puzzle. Again, not sure what that is, but the evidence for that can be found in every book, lecture, video, article on consciousness, I mean awareness.
Never send a man to do a machine's job. 8)
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Ranvier
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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A simple awareness of the external environment (conscious or awake, analogously to a pc "turned-on") is not sufficient to describe "consciousness". An AI driven car has awareness of the environment or even a motion sensor that opens the door. It's a distinct identity of self, capable of experiencing (pain, joy, fear etc.) "existing" within the external environment (non-self) in a continuous internal cohesiveness of this identity over time, with ability to sacrifice now on behalf of the benefit of future self. The mere fact of having a "free Will" to choose different conceivable outcomes and ability to hold two mutually exclusive ideas simultaneously (True/False both correct), is quite amazing and far beyond a simple awareness.

For the sake of a thought experiment, let us suppose that every piece of human "knowledge" is true. Let us imagine there is God with an intent [Reason] for everything. Why would [we] evolve as an individual "consciousness" capable of communicating through language, rather than one giant blob of "consciousness"? What could be the [reason] behind such choice?
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

Post by Belindi »

Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 12:49 am From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Waking awareness is only one form that consciousness takes. Other forms of consciousness include dreaming sleep, deep dreamless sleep, and waking hallucinations. Forms that consciousness takes are best defined by the neurochemicals that determine which sort of consciousness is experienced.
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Consciousness is an unfulfilled potential

To use the same analogy as previously: waking up the PC from a sleep mode to awake state or turn-on the PC by providing electricity to all the components, doesn't describe in any way the potential of that quantum computer.
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Agent Smyth
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Belindi wrote: March 25th, 2023, 6:23 am
Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 12:49 am From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Waking awareness is only one form that consciousness takes. Other forms of consciousness include dreaming sleep, deep dreamless sleep, and waking hallucinations. Forms that consciousness takes are best defined by the neurochemicals that determine which sort of consciousness is experienced.
Oui mademoiselle, there are n number of possibilities. I feel overwhelmed and beaten.
Never send a man to do a machine's job. 8)
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Sy Borg
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

Post by Sy Borg »

Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 1:27 am
Sy Borg wrote: March 25th, 2023, 1:12 am
Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 12:49 am From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Sense and response?

The meta awareness of sensing and responding?

Both?
Have you ever attended a meditation seminar, assuming there are such things? Were you served the meat 'n' potatoes or was that not on the menu?

Senses are an integral feature of awareness; not sure about response though. However, there seems to be a missin' piece in this puzzle. Again, not sure what that is, but the evidence for that can be found in every book, lecture, video, article on consciousness, I mean awareness.
Yes, I've done a meditation course and attended a few seminars.

If one cannot respond, then there's no point in sensing. That would be needless torment. Awareness varies a great deal, from the chemical sensing of microbes to thinking, emotional animals.
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Consul
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 5:57 pmWe didn't attempt to describe the concept of "real" or "exist", other than something we can perceive. How can something be "real" or "exist" if at the least it's not perceived by "consciousness" in your imagination. To "exist" it requires "energy" of your "consciousness", at the very least to "exist" as a concept (unicorns or aliens).
No, things don't have to be conceptualized (conceptually represented) in order to exist or be real. It is not true that being is being conceived or perceived.
Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 5:57 pm
Consul wrote: March 24th, 2023, 4:24 pm Many, but not all of our concepts are based on and derived from sensory perception.
Yes, that's true. But all concepts must by conceptualized (perceived) in your "consciousness". Otherwise it won't "exist".
The only "concepts" I innerly perceive are words or phrases used in inner speech. However, cognitive scientists postulate concepts qua mental representations in a nonconscious "language of thought" that aren't introspectively accessible.

By the way, as for the ontology of concepts, see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/
Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 5:57 pm
Consul wrote: March 24th, 2023, 4:24 pm The general ontology of properties doesn't require that all (real) properties be perceptible/observable, i.e. "secondary qualities", sensible/sensory qualities, or experiential/phenomenal qualities.
Again, think about what you wrote. How can you have any comprehension of "properties", especially some "(real) properties" without the ability to perceive these "properties" in your "consciousness". It doesn't make sense.
As far as "secondary qualities" such as (phenomenal) colors, sounds, smells, etc. are concerned, you must be able to experience them in order to understand their qualitative nature. For example, congenitally blind persons can acquire objective physical or psychological knowledge & understanding about (the experiencing/perceiving of) sense-data, but they cannot acquire subjective phenomenological knowledge & understanding of them owing to their inability to have subjective impressions of colors, sounds, smells, etc.

Structuralists about physics argue that all we know & understand about "primary qualities", i.e. objective physical properties, is their extrinsic character, i.e. their dispositional, causal/functional, and relational nature (rather than their intrinsic, categorical nature).

I'll leave the question as to whether they are right open here; but, again, I've only been talking about the general ontology of properties, and not about the epistemology of properties or the psychology of property perception or intellection, the first of which doesn't reduce the class of properties to experiential/phenomenal properties. The ontology of properties isn't wedded to phenomenalism or idealism!

What properties are is one question, and what (kinds of) properties there (really) are in the world is another question.
Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 5:57 pm
Consul wrote: March 24th, 2023, 4:24 pm According to scientific realism (which I affirm), physics deals successfully both with observable entities and with unobservable ones.
How in the world would you know if "physics deals successfully" with anything if you can't observe it and measure it?
The theoretical and technological success of physical science confirms scientific realism.
Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 5:57 pmYou continue to conflate two different things. There is an observable external "objective" "reality" and there is a realm of "consciousness" of concepts. If you continue to mix these two aspects of [reality] together, then it will be difficult to have a conversation about "energy" or "consciousness". Whatever we should decide "consciousness" to be, clearly, "consciousness" is the most fundamental "property" of [Energy]. In our individual subjective "consciousness", we can experience this primordial fundamental "property" of [energy]. Far more "real" than the materialism of physical matter or the change (energy) that we can perceive in the physical "reality". If you don't believe me, walk into a pitch dark room and experience what's most "real" to you, while searching aimlessly for a light switch.
There is a sense in which the sensory contents of consciousness have epistemological priority, because we are directly acquainted with them; but they do not have ontological priority as asserted by ontological idealism/phenomenalism. The world isn't made of mental ideas (percepts or concepts), and it is not the case that at the beginning there was the Idea!

If percepts are sensations qua sensory, nonconceptual representations of external things/events, they are part of phenomenal consciousness aka subjective experience; and if concepts are linguistic representations of external things/events used in inner speech, they are part of it too. But they are not if they are mental representations in a nonconscious "language of thought" (as postulated by cognitive scientists), or abstract and thus nonmental/nonexperiential meanings of words or phrases.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 8:49 pm
Consul wrote: March 24th, 2023, 4:42 pm In my view, experiences are in themselves neural processes; and the only forms of energy involved therein are the scientifically well-known (appeal to authority fallacy) electrical, chemical, or physical ones. There is no psychical energy in addition to those.
Let us pretend the above makes sense: How can "neural processes" & "electrical, chemical, and physical ones" (energies) perceive pain or pleasure? How can these constantly changing "energies" maintain a continuous "consciousness" throughout lifespan? Neural structure also constantly changes (neuroplasticity) throughout one's life, where a "character" or personality" may change but the "consciousness" of self remains the same. How can these "energies" perceive temporal displacement & perception of spacetime, unless "consciousness" is another property of [energy], aside from the "properties" of change in the electrochemical gradient (measured as "energy")? "There is no psychical energy in addition to those", how do you "know" that's true? Can't the Schrödinger's cat that's both dead and alive experience some "psychical energy"? [We] clearly can experience something we call "consciousness", with "psychical energy" of feelings and pain.
If perceivings are neural processes, they are not themselves the perceivers. The perceivers are animals with a brain enabling them to perceive things.

I fail to see why a dynamic neural network should be incapable of maintaining a continuous episode of consciousness. Electrical processes in a lamp can maintain a continuous beam of light, can't they?

By the way, you aren't continuously conscious throughout your life, since you become unconscious every time you fall into a dreamless sleep.

The neural networks underlying your personality or character exhibit varying degrees of constancy, depending on certain factors. My "consciousness of self" can change too. There are altered or abnormal states of self-consciousness induced by psychotropic drugs, or neural injuries or diseases such as dementia.

If there were a mental form of energy sui generis, psychophysical interactions would involve the conversion of mental energy into physical energy, or vice versa; but neurophysiologists have never noticed any sudden appearance and increase, or disappearance and decrease of physical (chemical, electrical) energy in the brain. So there is no empirical reason to disbelieve in the causal closure of neural processes, and to believe in mental energy as a neurophysically irreducible form of energy.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 9:24 pm
Consul wrote: March 24th, 2023, 4:50 pm The physical universe was teeming with energetic processes long before the first conscious organism was born.
You're an endless reservoir of "magic", where you just reach in and dispense miracles. How in the world can you make such a claim:
"The physical universe was teeming with energetic processes long before the first conscious organism was born"? Aside from the fact that "conscious" (awake or able to perceive) isn't the same as "consciousness", how can you possibly "know" whether there was "consciousness" or not? The only thing you can be certain is your own "consciousness", where without this "consciousness", as far as you're concerned "reality" doesn't "exist".
By "conscious organism" I mean "phenomenally conscious, i.e. subjectively experiencing, organism".

Panpsychism or "panexperientialism" may be empirically irrefutable, but it's nonetheless absolutely implausible in the light of our scientific knowledge of the world to attribute (phenomenal) consciousness to brainless organisms or nonorganisms.

Well, I'm a metaphysical realist; so it won't surprise you when I tell you that I reject the idealistic view that there is no reality without consciousness, that being is being experienced/perceived/conceived.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Consul wrote: March 25th, 2023, 8:21 pm…For example, congenitally blind persons can acquire objective physical or psychological knowledge & understanding about (the experiencing/perceiving of) sense-data, but they cannot acquire subjective phenomenological knowledge & understanding of them owing to their inability to have subjective impressions of colors, sounds, smells, etc.
I need to correct this statement:

"For example, congenitally blind persons can acquire objective physical or psychological knowledge & understanding about (the experiencing/perceiving of) visual sense-data, but they cannot acquire subjective phenomenological knowledge & understanding of them owing to their inability to have subjective impressions of colors."
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Agent Smyth
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

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Sy Borg wrote: March 25th, 2023, 6:27 pm
Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 1:27 am
Sy Borg wrote: March 25th, 2023, 1:12 am
Agent Smyth wrote: March 25th, 2023, 12:49 am From what I can gather, consciousness is defined in terms of awareness. So the natural thing to ask is what's awareness?
Sense and response?

The meta awareness of sensing and responding?

Both?
Have you ever attended a meditation seminar, assuming there are such things? Were you served the meat 'n' potatoes or was that not on the menu?

Senses are an integral feature of awareness; not sure about response though. However, there seems to be a missin' piece in this puzzle. Again, not sure what that is, but the evidence for that can be found in every book, lecture, video, article on consciousness, I mean awareness.
Yes, I've done a meditation course and attended a few seminars.

If one cannot respond, then there's no point in sensing. That would be needless torment. Awareness varies a great deal, from the chemical sensing of microbes to thinking, emotional animals.
True, you have a point, but the issue is marked by a complexity apparent to me in the differences between a rock and (say) a grasshopper and amebas and ...
Never send a man to do a machine's job. 8)
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

Post by Ranvier »

Consul wrote: March 25th, 2023, 8:21 pm
No, things don't have to be conceptualized (conceptually represented) in order to exist or be real. It is not true that being is being conceived or perceived.
I don't suggest this to be the reflection on individual intelligence of intellect, as most people I find hold a similar to yours false belief. I will create "something" to provide evidence of this phenomenon of human mind, not sure what it will be yet but it will come to my mind as I type...

Ok. Imagine that humans have a 7th sense of perceiving reality using an ultrasound. As they walk about city streets, citizens of the city can notice a curious shape around cell phone towers. News media promptly investigate this news story but as of yet there is no compelling explanation for what is now called: blablocity

I have no idea if it's true or even if it could be true but now we have a new concept of: blablocity that "exists". I chose this ridiculous label to ensure a label of this concept doesn't already "exist". Unless it can be conceptualized in both of our minds, hence the use of the label (word) for the concept; and become part of the societal or at least a small subgroup "consciousness", this concept of blablocity can't be "real" and will vanish from existence. Blablocity didn't "exist" before I typed it, yet now we can morn briefly "its" short lived existence in our "consciousness".

Consul wrote: March 25th, 2023, 8:21 pm The only "concepts" I innerly perceive are words or phrases used in inner speech. However, cognitive scientists postulate concepts qua mental representations in a nonconscious "language of thought" that aren't introspectively accessible.
It's not worrisome but I do wish there were more people who can think outside of they can read.

Stanford.edu? Good read but Stanford isn't what it used to be, sadly.
Consul wrote: March 25th, 2023, 8:21 pm
Ranvier wrote: March 24th, 2023, 5:57 pm
Consul wrote: March 24th, 2023, 4:24 pm The general ontology of properties doesn't require that all (real) properties be perceptible/observable, i.e. "secondary qualities", sensible/sensory qualities, or experiential/phenomenal qualities.
Again, think about what you wrote. How can you have any comprehension of "properties", especially some "(real) properties" without the ability to perceive these "properties" in your "consciousness". It doesn't make sense.
As far as "secondary qualities" such as (phenomenal) colors, sounds, smells, etc. are concerned, you must be able to experience them in order to understand their qualitative nature. For example, congenitally blind persons can acquire objective physical or psychological knowledge & understanding about (the experiencing/perceiving of) sense-data, but they cannot acquire subjective phenomenological knowledge & understanding of them owing to their inability to have subjective impressions of colors, sounds, smells, etc.

Structuralists about physics argue that all we know & understand about "primary qualities", i.e. objective physical properties, is their extrinsic character, i.e. their dispositional, causal/functional, and relational nature (rather than their intrinsic, categorical nature).

I'll leave the question as to whether they are right open here; but, again, I've only been talking about the general ontology of properties, and not about the epistemology of properties or the psychology of property perception or intellection, the first of which doesn't reduce the class of properties to experiential/phenomenal properties. The ontology of properties isn't wedded to phenomenalism or idealism!
I separate in my mind the relationship with information based on: Cognition > Comprehension > Understanding
Interestingly, academics who can't really think creatively, they just love to "create" meaningless labels (Structuralists) that should mean something to an average reader (presumably to offer authority to their own "thoughts" & pomposity in forced recognition of their ego). As submitted by "blablocity" example, thought is born from [Reason] or human [reason] of pursuit of the truth of mere "pomposity". This thought must be conceived in "consciousness" to gain "properties" (blablocity has some properties). Before the thought about "blablocity" occurred in my mind (perceived), it didn't "exist" and could not exist without my "consciousness" or perhaps someone else's who would come up with "blablocity". there is an infinite number of imaginary "properties" that don't "exist" yet, until it's born in someone's "consciousness". Therefore, I remain in dismay of your words:
"The general ontology of properties doesn't require that all (real) properties be perceptible/observable, i.e. "secondary qualities", sensible/sensory qualities, or experiential/phenomenal qualities".
They absolutely must be "perceived" or conceived in your "consciousness" to "exist", even if for a brief moment as will the case with "blablocity"

I shell continue later...
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Ranvier
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Re: Let's talk consciousness.

Post by Ranvier »

Too many meaningless words. My latest reply is under moderation.

Simply.
If "something" doesn't occur in our "consciousness", it can't "exist" or be "real". There may be an entire universe of "real" things that "exist" in [Reality], but unless it can occur in our "consciousness", such "universe of things" doesn't exist.
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