So I'm currently reading The Mystery of Consciousness by John Searle, and I can't get past one point. If the neurobiology of our brains is constitutive of consciousness, or if it is the cause of consciousness. What is the fundamental difference of whether something is constitutive or the cause of consciousness? Anyone able to offer some insight on the idea?
Consciousness
Isaac Turner
Other urls found in this thread:
plato.stanford.edu
twitter.com
Ian Hernandez
If your brain is not the cause of your consciousness, then something else is.
If your brain is the cause of your consciousness, then there you go.
What is funny is if you shoot yourself in the brain, you lose consciousness (or so I've heard)
How can you trust the chemicals in your brain when they tell you they're chemicals tho? Ha, check em' mate materialists
Sebastian Martin
If your brain is the cause of consciousness, then phrenology is a legitimate science, since the shape of your skull is indicative of the shape of your brain, and the shape of your brain would change the character of your consciousness.
Austin Ramirez
operations of the brain are IDENTICAL WITH consciousness as opposed to the operations of the brain being THE CAUSE OF some distinct event, consciousness
Luis Martin
The difference between something being constitutive or cause is honestly a great question. There is a concrete difference in definition (read: ), but in applicability its one of those things that can really stretch your brain.
When you read Searle you seek to access his ideas, right? Are the words constitutive or the cause of what you are absorbing? Either answer has its own satisfying reasons as well as problems, but I would suggest that each are unique to their respective answer.
In a more concrete example, one could say a river consists basically of water but it is only deemed a river if the water that comprises it moves. The potential distinction between constitution and cause becomes all the more clear here.
Suppose after a day kayaking, you drag your kayak up the bank and start a fire. The flames and the smoke rise from the logs. You know the smoke is a transformation of the logs and also something separate. Between the two is the flame; it's not exactly separate from the log, but it also isn't constituted by the log itself.
Is consciousness the fire upon the log, the log burning or the log itself? Is consciousness the river water, its movement, or both?
What really unlocked the difference was the idea of "divine causation." If nothing else, as a thought experiment. Throw away the concept of physical causation and imagine that its some outside force from mere physics making things and making things happen, then put it back in and see what changes.
plato.stanford.edu
this is like saying that the shape of a cup makes water taste differently, and that's only the beginning of how fucking stupid this post is.
this is coming from someone who wrote about a log because Averroes or some shit.
Brayden Ross
Searle's idea - which I agree with - is that the mind is caused by but not reducible to the brain, in the same way that digestion is caused by your stomach but not reducible to your stomach. This also helps with explaining why he can be opposed to functionalism (or simulation-friendly ideas of the mind) while still being open to the idea of non-organic brains: if I simulate your stomach down to the last molecule, I don't get real digestion, I only get simulated digestion. You can't use the results of that simulated digestion and give them to someone who can't digest food in order to let him live. In other words, simulation isn't duplication. Now, even though it would be absurd to say that you can make one out of any type of material as long as each element is in the right relationship with each other (that is, it would be absurd to say that you can make a stomach out of cheese), it's not stupid at all to say that you could make a stomach out of materials different from those that organic stomachs are made of.
Hope I cleared this up for you.
Bentley Campbell
I tend to find the idea of divine causation the most convincing of any argument, especially when the idea of basic vs. higher level consciousness comes into play. In regards to the idea of the log you presented, I have to believe that the interplay of all three facets are necessary for the emergence of consciousness. The interplay itself would be consciousness, no?
Jack Ramirez
>I will use my imagination to talk about consciousness and I will write about it
laff at liberals
Blake Cooper
That actually is quite helpful. However, if a digestive system was simulated and placed in the body of someone who did not have a functioning digestive system, why would that simulation not be real digestion while at the same time being digestion in the simulated sense?
Jackson King
By "simulation" I mean computer simulation. You can't put a simulated digestive system inside someone, I mean, you can do it, you can put a computer that is running a simulation of a digestive system into someone but that does nothing aside from I guess killing the person.
A digestive system made of say steel and artifical enzymes would be a replication of an organic digestive system by artifical ways, not a simulation of it.
Kayden Martinez
Ah, I see. Thanks
Easton Moore
Is it so stupid? If I press a random part of your brain do you think anything will happen? Why wouldn't an inward bump in your skull not apply pressure to a part of your brain?
Christopher Evans
>Why wouldn't an inward bump in your skull not apply pressure to a part of your brain?
Because that would create severe symptoms. Intracranic hypertension makes you vomit and gives you an headaches.
Also, phrenology is still wrong despite the brain causing your mind simply because it's based on incorrect assumptions concerning the distribution of mental properties throughout your brain. And lots of other stuff but let's not get into it.
Connor Hill
Wait, do you actually believe in phrenology or are you just trolling?
Robert Myers
I think he's making a point or he doesn't understand neuroscience, which is understandable.
Sebastian Sullivan
>divine causation the most convincing of any argument
I love thinking about it, but its not something that seems sufficient AND necessary as an explanation. (although the main reason is likely that in the case that it did convince me, the question of what is divinely causing things and the potential models of being that result don't seem as engaging to me).
>the interplay itself would be consciousness, no
This is where I lean, personally, but I don't feel super confident in any direction
Ethan Robinson
Divine causation is actually impossible.
God's omnipotency entails not only the ability to do everything that is logically possible, but also the fact that God necessarily succeeds in bringing about any situation or thing that he tries to create.
This means that anything God tries to do logically implies the result of that action.
This is a problem for causation because causes DO NOT logically imply their effects. Banging two stones together does not logically imply the creation of sparks, throwing water on fire does not logically imply the fire being extinguished (or diminished, whatever, doesn't matter). Every relationship between events that we characterize as a cause-effect relationship is never also characterize by a relationship of logical implication. Not only that, but all the things that we think are linked by logically necessity, say for example 2+2 equaling 4, we correctly do not characterize as being in a cause-effect relationship.
So any argument that tries to show how God caused something necessarily fails.
Owen Jenkins
This is tricky, obviously bound up in language, and dependent upon both the brain (nerves and senses) and an outer world- one cannot be conscious without ideas and named things to be conscious of. I read this book a very long time ago and had the utmost respect for Searle and his weak A/I positioning (of about 10 years ago?). Where it all stands now's beyond me. I lost interest in this topic some time ago. At stake, a definition for consciousness. So the fuck what..
Bentley Parker
My only issue with this is the implication of logic in the actions of God. God is, by definition, far in excess of humanity, and nothing that He does is necessarily able to be understood by man. Thus, why would His actions need to be logically consistent?
Eli Lee
So if I go to you, and create a small enough, carefully placed bump in your skull, it won't do anything? The shape of your skull is completely arbitrary? On the one hand it seems like minor changes in skull shape shouldn't change much, but on the other hand brains are sensitive to small changes.
I don't believe in phrenology, but if who we are is reducible to our brains I don't see why the shape of our skulls wouldn't effect that.
Jack Sanchez
>why would His actions need to be logically consistent?
So, you can ask why would his actions need to be logical consisten or why would his action be logically consistent, and the answers would be slightly different.
As to why they need to be logically consistent, there are philosophical arguments that I honestly don't remember anymore. But I can tell you why they need to be logically consistent for us to have any meaningful relationship with God: if God isn't bound by logical consistency, no rule or precept he gives us can be trusted because there's no assurance that they're not going to change at any time in the future (or even past!).
>So if I go to you, and create a small enough, carefully placed bump in your skull, it won't do anything?
If it's small enough, it won't do anything at all, yes.
>The shape of your skull is completely arbitrary
Of course, not, it depends on several factors which - within physiological limits - don't seem to have anything to do with psychological traits.
Blake Lewis
This is backwards. God's omnipotence entails that everything that God does is logically possible, not that logically possible things are what God can possibly do. An omnipotent God defines what is logical, logic would not define was an omnipotent God can do. Also, God doesn't try to do things, that would imply there are things to be tried which he hasn't done already. There is only what God has actually done, and what he has actually done is what defines what is logical.
This means that an action's successful occurrence implies that it is logical under divine causation. The causal link we find between water and fire is thus revealed as logical. Although, like a mathematical formula, we cannot derive from what water is that it necessarily puts out fire, this simply means that our logic is insufficient.
Mason Nguyen
I think you fail to realize to realize what phrenology actually is. If you read up on it, you'll find a lot of it hilariously dumb.
In any case, the question of consciousness can't be equated to the different kinds of aptitudes one may have for different things or even personality. So there is no good reason to even bring up phrenology in this thread.
The idea that the state of brain matter affects the way people behave, perceive or function isn't disputed at all. It's why lobotomies and other procedures like electro-shock therapy are still performed to this day. There's no contradiction between acknowledging this and entertaining either model of consciousness
Luke Allen
>it depends on several factors which - within physiological limits - don't seem to have anything to do with psychological traits
The "within physiological limits" is the issue. There is, quite plainly, a relationship between the shape of your skull and your brain. You can't just choose an arbitrary shape, in other words. This relationship is of an apparently small, but unquantified, magnitude. But the fact that the relationship exists at all means that the central premise of phrenology is correct, that the shape of your skull matters to who you are. They just hyped it up way too much.
Carson Torres
>not that logically possible things are what God can possibly do
That's not what I said.
>An omnipotent God defines what is logical
Not really, it would be more like logic is part of God's nature.
The first paragraph is mostly irrelevant to what I was arguing so let's see the second one.
>The causal link we find between water and fire is thus revealed as logical
That's not what I said either. What I said was more like this: water being thrown on fire does not logically imply the fire having the reaction that we see having it, or in other words there is no logically necessary relationship between water and fire acting that way. In yet another way, I can think of logically consistent worlds where water being thrown on fire makes trees grow or green hyppos being born, and that's not the same for things like numbers or relationships like A=A.
Evan Rodriguez
>But the fact that the relationship exists at all means that the central premise of phrenology is correct, that the shape of your skull matters to who you are
Ok, this is either true, if we mean in completely banal way, or false, if we mean it in some other more interesting way.
True because of course if your skull is the shape of a toroid, you're going to have serious problems.
False because outside of extreme cases, the fact that there is a relationship between the shape of the skull and the shape of your brain doesn't necessarily (also, empirically) mean that there is a relationship between the shape of the skull and psychological traits you have. This can be for several reasons such as the shape of the skull not influencing the shape of the brain enough or the shape of the brain not being an influence (aside from those cases) when it comes to psychological traits.
Ryder Flores
What you said was:
>the ability to do everything that is logically possible
If I have the ability to do something this means that I "can possibly do" that thing.
Thus, your full clause:
>the ability to do everything that is logically possible
Is equivalent to saying that God "can possibly do everything that is logically possible"
The set of things that God can possibly do, then, is "everything that is logically possible."
I rephrase all of the above as "logically possible things are what God can possibly do." It is what you said, just not literally the exact same words.
>the causal link we find between water and fire is thus revealed as logical
Correct this is not what you said. And you're right, you do not derive, from the definition of water, that it puts out fire. So under your assumptions the argument runs:
Definition: Omnipotence is the property that "an object has the ability to do everything that is logically possible" or equivalently "logically possible things can possibly be done by the object." Furthermore, omnipotence includes that "if God initiates a cause, it necessarily corresponds to a logical effect"
Assume God has omnipotence
Assume God causes things
Thus things that God causes logically imply their effect. But the relationship between causes and effects does not fall in the realm of "logically possible things" because they are not logically connected. Thus, God cannot possibly substantiate the relationship between causes and effects, because it is not within the purview of his omnipotence. But this is a contradiction, thus we must give up either God's omnipotence or his role in causation.
Under my definition, the new argument is that:
Definition: Omnipotence is the property that "Whatever this object does implies that the action done is logical"
Assume God has omnipotence
Assume God causes things
Thus things that God causes are logical. God causes the relationship between cause and effect. Therefore cause and effect are logically connected.
Gavin Ward
Circular logic is now an argument?
Owen Cox
You clearly have little to no understanding of how the brain works. The shape doesn't matter, it's the neural connections that do.
Andrew Perry
Carter Rivera
Adrian Young
kek
David Walker
haha, why is Tien black?
Ryder Powell
>Anyone able to offer some insight on the idea?
Not Searle
Peirce
Bateson
J v uxekull
Terrence Deacon
Kalevi kull
Jesper hoffmeyer
John Deely
Sebok
Deleuze and Guattari, (only if you are already a Peircean)
If you are at all discerning, you would be better off with Aristotle and Aquinas than formal and final cause deniers.
Ryan Stewart
t. a bat
John Wood
breddy gud post
Nolan Nelson
Qualia is subjective, someone you you think is real could just be a p zombie, the point I'm trying to make is you can't say consciousness disappears if you only have your experience that you can confirm to be real. We obviously have to assume that it ends after death if the brain is what "creates" consciousness but you can't kno nuffin
James Taylor
the brain is squishy, pressing it softly does nothing
babbys brains can get really squished during birth and they just recover from that
Zachary Sanders
Jason Kelly
What do you guys think about near death experiences?
Related to finding out more about consciousness?
I've read people see things related to their culture's religion mostly