Hard Problem of Consciousness

Why does everyone pretend that physicalism and dualism are the only two options? They've both been debunked.

What is the soul to you? If it's free will, then you can deconstruct virtually all of the decisions we make throughout our lives and trace them to basic needs that all animals are subject to, and to which our emotions are fine-tuned to cause us to either want or not want. Any illusion of "weighing" different options or choices is an internal struggle between immediate desires and more calculated future payoffs.

We're a lot simpler than we like to think we are.

Pure conjecture. We don't have a definitive answer yet, your post is just the wishful thinking of the hardened naturalist. Nothing more.

I didn't say we have an answer. But this seems likely from what we know so far. There is almost no need for an extra-natural explanation for anything we see in human behavior at this point.

There is no evidence for the "brain-as-a-receiver" model. Consciousness and other higher order functions can be fully explained with the current materialist model. Your hypothesis is an unfalsifiable one and can only have any legitimacy if it is supported empirically, which is the very thing it was invented to avoid. So I ask you, where is the evidence? And what reason is to consider a model other than materialism?

The problem is that your own logic makes your position untenable. If true it means you're an automaton programmed to believe what you believe. You may THINK that it's because you have good evidence supporting your position, but your own argument says that is an illusion and you ultimately only hold that belief because you were predestined to. It's a dead end. No free will means scientific inquiry is completely useless because you're not making your own conclusions, you're making conclusions the physical system you're trying to comprehend is making you conclude, because you're part of it.

Basically scientific inquiry is predicated on the fact we're able to reach our own conclusions based on empirical data. If that isn't true we might as well shut up shop and go back to being cavemen.

>Consciousness and other higher order functions can be fully explained with the current materialist model
This is a nice little piece of arrogant presumption. What makes you think this considering we don't have any idea about what consciousness actually IS other than the fact we experience it?

Link me a description of the hard problem that doesn't use ambiguous terms. I cannot be expected to take a problem seriously if it's not formally stated.

I agree with your conclusion, but not your assumption that all motive can be reduced into logical metaphor that can be calculated.
Ex: 'metacognition', what's the advantage of questioning one's thoughts? To correct?
Why aren't we simply born with 'all the correct thoughts', which would clearly be advantageous. Maybe we are, yet we're certainly able to be deceived.

really famous ted talk from dennett
ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness

Perhaps I minced my words. I meant that the presence of consciousness and other functions associated with the mind can be explained in purely physical terms. What consciousness "actually is" is something I even know how to approach, at least from a materialist point of view. There unfortunately is no other model that is as successful at making predictions.

I don't see how a result's being predetermined has any bearing on its validity. A computer was predetermined to arrive at certain answers, but I don't think you would argue that its outputs are meaningless just because they were predetermined.

>I don't see how a result's being predetermined has any bearing on its validity
You missed the point, which is you were predetermined to either accept or reject the validity. Whether or not the result is actually valid is kind of irrelevant since that stance means that you don't actually have the agency necessary to reject an invalid answer, or accept a valid one. Whatever you believe or don't believe is already determined by the system you're part of, making all inquiry pointless, the answers you accept have already been decided, you have no choice in the matter.

If you're thinking that's absurd, good, it is. Physicalism refutes itself in this way.

We can't be born with all the correct thoughts because our knowledge of the environment is obviously going to be very partial and imperfect. It's why we make mistakes. It's why even robots make mistakes and always will no matter how advanced they become. Like I said, self-control exists as a regulating mechanism that brings more immediate emotional responses into line with what we gather about the environment. Yes, it can all be calculated.

>computers can't compute anything because they have no choice

A computer can compute a lot of things. It just can't determine the validity of the output because it has no agency. If it's programmed to spit out "Ice cream" as the answer of "1 + 1" it will. Is that a correct answer? No, but the computer has no ability to step in and make it's own judgement on the validity of the output and according to physicalism neither do you. You only believe 1 + 1 = 2 because your brain is programmed to make you believe that.

Better go inform the mathematicians of the world that the 4 color theorem isn't actually proven since a computer was used for the proof.

>You only believe 1 + 1 = 2 because your brain is programmed to make you believe that.
And what do you believe?

You know what's really nutty? Imagine a person loses their consciousness but their brain remains otherwise identical. That person would continue to act in an identical manner despite this, and would insist that they are a conscious being. Somewhere in our neurons the concept of consciousness is encoded even though as a concept it's really nothing more than a passenger in a vehicle.

>That person would continue to act in an identical manner despite this
citation needed

Are you being deliberately obtuse or is the discussion going over your head? You can't 'prove' anything because if you believe the mind is purely material you are an automaton. You can't even prove 1 + 1 = 2 because you can't even discern whether logic itself is an illusion, you don't have free will, you can't come to any other conclusions.

Being able to decide if premise A or premise B is correct means you need the ability to freely pick between them. You assert you do not have that ability and were predestined to pick A or B based on your programming, not on any logic or evidence behind that. You keep talking about 'proof' like your position doesn't completely rule out any objective proof because your mind is literally tricking you into thinking you have any agency over your beliefs, actions and thoughts.

You're saying that anything without agency cannot reliably find right answers, which means computers are useless.

I do believe that 1 + 1 = 2 because I believe each person has real free will and agency over their thoughts and conclusions, therefore using logic we can prove 1 + 1 = 2 without worrying that it's a determination that our physical brain has decided on and tricked us into thinking that our logic supports.

Like I said. Physicialism refutes itself. If you believe the mind is purely the result of physical processes then you are a robot and only believe what you do because you were predestined to. Any logic you think supports your position is a trick.

I'm saying you lack the ability to judge those answers as right or not because the programming of your brain determines that. You're at the mercy of your programming much like the computer giving out "ice cream" as the answer to "1 + 1". You lack the ability to choose between options based on evidence, you simply follow the path your programming has determined. That means all your conclusions ever are suspect because they're not based on evidence, or logic, they're based on what your brain has predetermined you to believe, and that includes anything computers spit out.

Explain how 'simpler animals' such as sea turtles could have the ability to dig their way out of the sand and seek water after hatching at the precise time before it's too hot or cold to safely do so, programmed instinct through random evolutionary success? Then will is an illusion. The only way to explain this occurrence while retaining the concept of will is that 'it' is controlled by a consciousness outside the boundary of it's physical brain.
without observation and input, precisely

Well hypothetically speaking if you could supress consciousness while maintaining normal brain activity. I suppose that might be impossible though.

If you know exactly what consciousness is, why haven't you revolutionized neuroscience yet?

Confirmed creationist. Move along folks.

I'm having trouble conceptualizing this, but still have a general idea of what you're getting at. Perhaps you could help me understand. I just don't see how materialism could be wrong given its enormous predictive success. Rejecting it seems as absurd as rejecting free will does in your view (which I'm still struggling to understand). If we throw out materialism, we have to throw out all of science, which doesn't seem right to me.

>ecause if you believe the mind is purely material you are an automaton.

No you dumb deranged fucker. Take some drugs.

Clearly physical things ingested can cause wild variations in judgment and reasoning. Even being fat has detrimental effects to brain functioning.

You realize that a neuronal network metaphor fits far more strongly than a unitary soul. We have innumerable networks that work for both general and particular operations of the body.

The explanatory power of networking calculation is far greater than that of unitary souls.

We have both angels and demons inside us and physiological chances and interactions with the environment can unleash differences in networks, their neuronal "control", and differences of evaluation.

If you're afraid of automatons, why do you trust God to be less of one?

I guess that makes you an uncreationist who rejects autonomy?
I have no faith in anything but what can be observed, sorry for the narrow mindedness...
So let's stay certain all exists by chance, why not?

Tide comes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.

>I just don't see how materialism could be wrong given its enormous predictive success
Well for starters science makes the predictions and those predictions are predicated on a philosophy of physicalism. We need to be careful about drawing conclusions because the scientific method is specifically for discovering physical phenomena and explaining them. Just because the scientific method ignores anything that isn't physical doesn't mean things that aren't physical don't exist. To illustrate this consider this:

1. Metal detectors have had far greater success in finding coins and other metallic objects in more places than any other method has.
2. Therefore we have good reason to think that metal detectors can reveal to us everything that can be revealed about metallic objects.

But we can't determine everything there is to know about metal from a metal detector, even though the metal detector is a very successful method of discovering metal. If you have a net that is designed to catch dolphins then smaller fish are going to slip through. Basically just because our methods of learning about the universe are specifically designed to detect and identify physical phenomena doesn't mean we can automatically rule out the existence of non-physical phenomena.

>If we throw out materialism, we have to throw out all of science, which doesn't seem right to me

Not at all, we just need to realize that the physical is just one part of reality. Right now we're like a person with a metal detector scanning around the beach who surmises that because all we've ever found is metal with our detector it follows plastic cannot exist.

>sea turtles could have the ability to dig their way out of the sand and seek water after hatching at the precise time before it's too hot or cold to safely do so,

Evolution is partially driven by "mutants" who through quirks of luck, contain novel behaviors which might hamper them in normal times and raise their survival chance in catastrophic times.

It speaks to the impudence of evangelical Christians that they cannot be patient enough to imagine thousands of generations competing against lines of other life for thousands of generations.

Everything for the feeling of being holy.

I just feel that if there is an outside consciousness controlling us from without and sending us communications from some higher plane of existence, then why wouldn't it just send us all the information there is to know about all that exists, including this higher plane?

Could be an inherent limitation of the physical brain? How would a 6 dimensional being send information to us that would let us conceptualize it? Some things might be beyond our grasp because of our three dimensional existence, it's too hard for us to conceptualize anything beyond that because it's outside the scope of our experience.

give me a few years nigger.

>let's stay certain all exists by chance
like it or not, you don't have an alternative explanation

i'm not saying it's right, i'm just saying you can't be certain either

because you sure act like you are

Because Christof Koch is already doing it.

nature.com/news/a-giant-neuron-found-wrapped-around-entire-mouse-brain-1.21539

It won't be long now...

How do you explain that the brain is, by all accounts, just a complex chain of dominoes? Where does free will fit into this? The firing of each neuron is caused by the firing of a previous one. There isn't any room for "free will" (nebulously defined in the first place) in this interpretation. This is simply irrefutable from my point of view. You would have to deny what is before your very eyes to deny that the brain follows a predetermined path.

>3D reconstructions show a 'crown of thorns' shape stemming from a region linked to consciousness.
Hmmmm

lel

Well if free will doesn't exist you can pretty much discard all the results of scientific inquiry anyway. If you're unable to make your own judgements and draw your own conclusions then all our accepted results are completely arbitrary. The only reason people think results match reality is because their brain tricks them.

No free will means you cannot draw any conclusions without also admitting those conclusions are not actually based on facts, logic or evidence but rather because the machinery of your brain forced that conclusion upon you. In that case all of this is pointless and like I said, we might as well wrap it up because we can never know what is objectively true and separate it from what our brain has decided what we are to believe.

There are examples of mechanisms that either could not function without a whole system, or would actively hinder the organism without being complete (venom sacs), making the gradual, random changes into functional adaptions theory difficult to apply, such as turtle example. Logically, they shouldn't exist from a solely evolutionary perspective.
Even so, are we to believe the mechanism that allows for mutation to occur is by chance, R/DNA's little understood translation into protein, all mechanically a fluke?

tl;dr: if all is random, nothing should exist. Que the simultaneous multiverse counter-theory, which is possible but not an elegant explanation

It's not exactly random. Environmental pressures weed out the maladaptive traits.

And by not elegant, meaning, what explains our persistent occupation of this one? The circular reasoning of chance

>Seinfield
kys

>No free will means you cannot draw any conclusions without also admitting those conclusions are not actually based on facts, logic or evidence but rather because the machinery of your brain forced that conclusion upon you.
Why do you make these mutually exclusive? A conclusion can be predetermined, correct, and based on evidence and logic.

The ability to base a conclusion on facts and logic requires agency. An ability to pick between competing theories and select the one that the evidence supports. No free will means no agency means you have no actual ability to select and are just riding along on the path your brain selects while being given the illusion you're making your own choices.

Can a predetermined conclusion be correct? Of course it can, we wouldn't have technology if that wasn't the case. But the sticking point is for an individual who believes free will is an illusion it means ALL your conclusions are illusory. Right and wrong. And you have absolutely no way to determine which ones are right and which ones are wrong. You're just like a computer program which by mere chance sometimes spits out the correct answer, and sometimes spits out the wrong one. The program itself has no idea which ones are right and wrong, it's just acting according to the logic which has been programmed into it. As are you.

Ultimately no free will means we'll never know the truths of the universe. We're being strung along by biochemical processes which make us believe we're acting according to some internal sense of logic, but we're really not.

Weighing what action to take is just a switch in the brain that gets tripped one way or the other depending on signal strength that is reaching the seat of agency. If it's receiving an overwhelmingly strong flight signal from the amygdala, the executive decision will be made to flee, and it will overwhelm any other possible course of action other signals might be prompting you to take at that moment. The "polity" of neurons causing you to make different decisions is basically a democracy. Each constituency wants different things, and they are all continually trying to exert their influence on that switch, that seat of agency, that executive center that makes the final decision on what action the entire organism takes in the end.

Oh and awareness itself is just the confluence of all these internal and external signals.

Maybe birth is a means of temporarily escaping the state of being 'all awareness', as one may imagine being a 'collective mind', rather overwhelming. Paradoxically, here we seek a return to this state in a quest for truth in an endless cycle.

Even if it is predetermined, this implies a design, system or will existed by definition; not chance

As he said what we understand as the concious mind it's a wide arrange of brain functions all mingled togheter, designed to do specific things but ultimately unpredictable.

>a wide arrange of functions all mingled together
>designed to do specific things but ultimately unpredictable
Then why do we intuitively perceive ourselves as conscious in the first place?

Not yet known. But even if a physical mechanism was established you would still ask this question. I don't see how it can be answered in a conclusive, exhaustive way.

I think the "reason", if there even can be a conclusive reason, that we experience this cohesive sense of "oneness" even though we're a collection of cells is to help with decision making. It's a byproduct of having to take singular courses of action despite being basically walking pillars of bacteria strung together.

It couldn't be as consistent as it is if that's what it was. It also wouldn't have the information exclusivity problem.

I don't know. It's one of the prevailing theories of consciousness.

Anyway, I don't think it's that consistent, actually. It just seems that way. It's the reason we have mood swings etc. It feels like a part of your "self" as opposed to a force that is exerting influence over your "self", which is actually what it is. This is part of the illusion of consciousness.

You're right. I'll change from now on.

Mood swings are when it disappears though.

What disappears? Consciousness?

Well, I mean I would think of the times when you have full control of yourself as also not "yourself". It's just a different part of the brain is exerting influence over your ego, to use Freud's terminology. In this instance, it's memory and what you have learned about your environment. But that's still not "you". It's the information you gathered from your environment. You wouldn't purposely make the wrong decision. To the best of your knowledge, you will always try to make sound decisions according to what you believe is true. If you choose to take the OPPOSITE course of action, just to prove to yourself that you are a free agent and not an automaton, that is still influenced by memory. Except that you're just doing the opposite of what you know is right.

>birth is a means of temporarily escaping the state of being 'all awareness'
You mean omniscience. Yeah, if you believe in panpsychism, that's exactly what it would be. We're "beings of light" to use an Evangelion trope.

aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most-probably-true

But there is no soul in panpsychism. All minds are equivalent and not separate.

I wasn't arguing in favor of the soul idea.

Solved. You will like it. It is nice.

Wow! I don't get it.

Because literally every single other phenomenon that has been observed ever has been explainable physically, be it right then or later on.

I don't need to see any other arguments. This encapsulates why most people alive today think there are no gods, no magic, and nothing "extra speshul" about the world we occupy. Why should consciousness be any different?

You can't claim that consciousness is unexplainable unless you solve the interaction problem.

but everything, including consciousness, is not so easily explainable

assuming consciousness can be explained in terms of physicality, physicality itself cannot, and must therefore be explained in terms of something else that we have no access to

if you think you've solved it you don't understand it

implying there are no unsolved problems in physics.

There is no interaction problem.

Why is existence so excruciatingly hard to bear?

Because we were never meant to be. Matter arranging itself into a form which can contemplate its own mortality and the pointlessness of it's existence is the cruelest joke of all.

Wrong, 1+1 definitely = Ice cream

Wrong, we were always meant to be. We are meant to be the universe experiencing itself, any alternative would be irrational.

What if the interaction problem is that they don't like how I interact, and that they really don't like it that they realized they had no reasoanble expectation for me, a free man in a superficially free country, to conform to their expectations for my interactions to begin with?

Love reading your opinions, but unfortunately, under anesthesia, all there is is black

If I could trace all the effects that my remaining a simple cog in this society has on the likes of supergeniuses like edward witten, I would not wish for my own death.

This is what I always think Shakespeare meant with "to be or not to be"

i didnt know shakespeare killed himself

oh right

he didnt

Is this supposed to be evidence against the soul? Because it isn't anymore than sleep is

But you're essentially conscious during sleep. Unless you're a chronic pot smoker.

Except there's no proof that consciousness comes from a source outside of the brain and that the brain only acts as a receiver so your analogy is retarded. Quit pulling things out of your ass.

Your brain is the operating system upon which the consciousness is built. The brain holds data, which can be described as the electrical and chemical properties that exist in the biological structure.

When all components of the brain are integrated together in the hypothalamus, the data becomes information (you are 'informed' of reality - you are aware). This information can be called a 'consciousness'.

Your consciousness, however is better described as a self-modifying model of reality. Every model is flawed in many ways, due to the organic nature of a consciousnesses development. Hence many artificial constructs can be built within the model to solve different problems - religions, beliefs, habits etc.

Read "from bacteria to bach and back"

>Except there's no proof that consciousness comes from a source outside of the brain
Yes there is

well I'm waiting

Try this...

youtube.com/watch?v=-kNtJ08a-ss