What current attempts at explaining what consciousness is, do you believe to be the closest one to the truth and why?

so the key to understand the consciousness is to understand why fainted people don't have consciousness

Consciousness is just a reaction to things you experiment, it's just an illusion

It's futile speculation as long as consciousness cannot be observed.

"Consciousness cannot be observed as some external "thing", for it is the "thing" doing the observing." ~ Britney Spears

Schopenhauer also said something similar.

my money is on functionalism or behavioralism

Everything other than "quantum consciousness" is wrong

thats functionalism for you

Emergent Property.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_observer

what is consciousness

Using that word and at the same admitting its definition isn't clear is insane.
'Consciousness' is the most hand-wavy term in general use. Phlogiston more than phlogiston ever was.

>behaviourism
I guess everyone but me is a robot! The arrogance.

Two solutions :

Or there is something we absolutely don't understand in biology and physics and we need a incredibly big paradigm shift

Or it's something we can't explain with science and there is God

Because all these shits (memories, consciousness, imagination, though, etc.) are basically things that don't exist (everything in our universe is made of energy/matter except them) but that exist (you can access your memories).

It's just absurd.

>but me
No you retard, behaviorists aren't solipsists.

>Everything other than "quantum consciousness" is wrong
That's the least plausible one on a list filled with bad explanations.
arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9907009v2.pdf
>We find that the decoherence timescale s ( ∼ 10 −13 − 10 −20 seconds) are typically much shorter than the relevant dynamical timescales ( ∼ 10 − 3 − 10 − 1 seconds), both for regular neuron firing and for kink-like polarization excitations in microtubules. This conclusion disagrees with suggestions by Penrose and others that the brain acts as a quantum computer, and that quantum coherence is related to consciousness in a fundamental way.
You are only allowed to honestly believe in "quantum consciousness" if you also believe consciousness has nothing to do with neuronal firing i.e. if you deliberately decide to be retarded.

Read "Being Nothing"

I know nobody hear reads though so: Dualism. Emergent/substance according to the popsci meme chart

That Tegmark article is a joke. He used the entire length of the microtubule as his measurement. Pennrose and Hammeroff are talking about an atomic scale in their model.

Because Leary was a self styled hierophant.

I unironically believe that anyone who thinks Behaviourism is the answer to the problem of consciousness is a literal p-zombie
MUH ILLUSIONS

It's pretty obvious that it's substance dualism. The brain is a receiver for the spiritual self. Damaging the brain inhibits it's ability to receive the information properly and as such manifests as an incomplete ability to resolve the spiritual mind in the physical body.

By which author? Couldn't find anything on Amazon, did you mean God Being Nothing by Ray L. Hart?

Sorry it's "Being No-One" by Metzinger

unironically this

Conscious beings all share two ideas, they are all awake and all aware of their surroundings and self.

The taoists would probably group awareness with yin and being awake with yang. Consciousness probably isn't anything in particular it is a description of this dualism.

>anyone who thinks Behaviourism is the answer to the problem of consciousness is a literal p-zombie
Sure, but you're one too. Only difference is you're a zombie who goes around claiming he isn't a zombie.

I've taken enough psychedelics to realize that I'm truly conscious

Psychedelics probably key you into the subconscious as well which these braindead athiests will never be able to explain.

So either:
A) The brain makes use of behavior where you claim and act as though there's something going on other than physiology and behavior even though there isn't (as a shortcut that lets you abstract out common collections of sensory input into pretend objects that are more efficient to work with then the messy details of literal reality) or
B) This something else going on is real because you're very sure it's real.
I am always surprised people are so much more drawn to option B.

I stopped being a nihilistic depressed self hating atheist after I experimented with different psychedelics and it got me really interested in the topic of consciousness, religion, mythology and psychoanalysis. I also helped me to get my life order, I am way more productive, outgoing and generally more ok with life.
Or I just have a drug psychosis, who knows

>subconscious
lol, that term was coined by Sigmund Freud, the guy who literally claimed belief in God is a manifestation of the infantile desire for a father figure.

>the guy who literally claimed belief in God is a manifestation of the infantile desire for a father figure.
he was right though

Still doesn't explain 'who' exactly is experiencing this sensory input, the human brain could work like a computer with complex inputs and outputs, without any consciousness, like a computer or a simple mechanical machine. But how does the sensory input create a subjective experience/qualia that I'm perceiving right at this very moment?

I'm not saying he's right or wrong, I'm just pointing out how someone made a post about "braindead atheists" not understanding the subconscious when the subconscious is a concept invented by the most aggressively anti-theistic thinker of modern times.

>Still doesn't explain 'who' exactly is experiencing this sensory input
Nobody "experiences" sensory input, sensory input is a physical interaction.
Who "experiences" light hitting a camera mounted on a robot? Nobody, it doesn't need a "who" or an "experience" to take in sensory input and have behavioral and/or (the robot equivalent of) physiological responses.

>how does the sensory input create a subjective experience/qualia that I'm perceiving right at this very moment?
Because you aren't, you're exhibiting behavior inclusive of making a report that "a subjective experience/qualia that I'm perceiving." There's no reason to assume that report's content is literally true beyond "I'm very certain that it's true."

>brainlet experienced hallucinations after fucking up his brain badly with toxicants, and started believing in supernatural, the story

>Nobody, it doesn't need a "who" or an "experience" to take in sensory input and have behavioral and/or (the robot equivalent of) physiological responses.
Yes but we clearly do since I'm experiencing it right now. That's the question he was posing. We don't need a 'who' to respond to sensory input, but we do. Why?

>we clearly do since I'm experiencing it right now
Yes, the "it's true because I'm very certain that it's true" argument. Very persuasive.

>Brainlet doesn't realize that the most safe psychedelics are safer than any other drugs because they're literally slight modifications to existing brain chemistry, such as for instance psilocybin which is a slightly modified serotonin molecule, and is proven to be impossible to overdose on, similar with LSD and DMT

Cogito ergo sum.

>We don't need a 'who' to respond to sensory input
There's a difference between a robot that just responds to sensory input in directly reflexive ways (e.g. always move towards light sources or always move away from tactile input) vs. one that responds in more convoluted ways including behavior about behavior (e.g. making a record of there being visual input similar to its past encounters with visual input of dogs and making a report to you about how it's "sees" your pet dog there). You don't need to invoke some extra-physical "qualia" phenomenon to account for why there would be usefulness in this deeper collection of processes about processes compared to the approach where everything an organism does is direct reflex.

I'm not disputing that sensory inputs create and cause behavioral/psysiological responses, I know that my behavior/physiological output is influenced by my input
But somehow these inputs also cause a subjective experience, like the "picture" I see with my eyes, the taste from food, the feeling of touch or listening to music, some layer of "me" is subjectively experiencing these things on a conscious level, the word "qualia" is the closest word I found to describe what I'm trying to talk about. Who or what exactly is "experiencing" these sensations? How do the sum of all my electrical and biochemical inputs create this experienced consciousness?
Are you an actual p-zombie?

"I am" isn't interchangeable with "qualia are literally real" even if you accept for the sake of argument that Descartes proved something with that quote. And thinking doesn't require "qualia" are literally real either. It's processing information and behaving around what you've processed.

>Are you an actual p-zombie?
That's an inane question since the argument "qualia" are literally real is effectively the same as saying everyone is a p-zombie. You're only asking it to try to make a point about how you think this position is strange.
>somehow these inputs also cause a subjective experience
So more of the "it's true because I'm very certain that it's true" argument.
Well I'm "very certain" that very certain behavior based around useful notions that aren't actually true isn't something beyond the scope of what a brain can do.

Qualia are literally real though. It's not in dispute at all. Any theory that asserts otherwise is self defeating by definition.

Hey user, you're missing the point that the only thing we can know for sure is that we are experiencing qualia. You don't know whether I'm a human sitting here typing or a hallucination

All I know is that I'm seeing a computer screen right now and I can feel my fingers typing, and it feels like I'm making them do the typing. When I really think about it though I only observe these words after I type - maybe my fingers are too fast for my brain. Either way, I know that I am experiencing qualia and I am not a p-zombie. This is irrefutable, there is absolutely nothing you can say to convince me otherwise, and that is my epistemological right, if not my duty, to uphold this statement.

*aren't literally real
>Qualia are literally real though. It's not in dispute at all.
That's a lie. If it weren't in dispute there wouldn't exist all the different modern thought experiments like Mary's room where people who believe qualia are literally real try to convince everyone else their position is right.

If you assert qualia are not real then you're an automaton and are incapable of reaching a logical conclusion by definition. Any person who asserts they have no qualia automatically disqualifies their own argument as they're arguing they have no capacity to form a logical argument in the first place.

Accidental side effect of complex physical processes in the brain. The level of consciousness experience is involved in how the brain in set up, from which we built intelligence. Consciousness is one side of intelligence, but intelligence within itself is a masterpiece that is very unique and cannot be replicated. This is something you are given, from that- falls all your perspectives of life. This is something you cannot change or fix, just work with whatever you have. But overall it is fixed and will effect each step of your life.

It's a matter of people not understanding the definition of qualia, this not making the mental connection. Qualia is real, period. I'm experiencing qualia right now. This is without a doubt, what is your epistemic argument to refute my personal first hand experience, when this is inherently a personal and first-hand piece of information? You say we should reject personal first-hand evidence, but this is a topic where that is the only type of evidence that could ever exist, and it plainly does exist to anyone who looks at the situation clearly enough.

So you don't experience "qualia"?
I know that I can't prove to anyone that I have an actual subjective experience and nobody else can prove to me that they have a an actual subjective experience. But I know that "I" or the thinking/experiencing/conscious part exists. Who "hears" the thoughts that my brain creates? I know they are real. Or how else could I explain, at least to "myself", what I'm experiencing right now and have been experiencing for years?

>If you assert qualia are not real then you're an automaton and are incapable of reaching a logical conclusion by definition.
lmao what? it doesn't mean that at all

>you're an automaton and are incapable of reaching a logical conclusion by definition
No, that doesn't follow at all. Let's say "qualia" *are* literally real, for humans but not for computer programs. That doesn't mean computer programs can't reach logical conclusions. There's nothing about logic that requires "qualia" be literally real, and also you're probably conflating immediate reflexive behavior with more complex forms of behavior associated with what's considered intelligence. Just because both obey physical causality doesn't mean there isn't any difference between the two. And any argument that has you denying causality is itself a way better indication you're making a logical error than an argument where you're affirming causality. You can't really use logic without affirming the existence of causality, and you can't affirm the existence of causality if you believe you're magically exempt from it.

>I know that "I" or the thinking/experiencing/conscious part exists
You're mixing up thinking with "qualia." It would help if you straightened your terms out.

Who says computer programs don't experience qualia?

Would you find it surprising if an organism like a human that claimed it had an experience didnt have one?

>That doesn't mean computer programs can't reach logical conclusions
Actually it does. Computer programs don't reach logical conclusions, they reach conclusions that are permitted by their programming logic. The output is already predetermined by the input. If a computer is programmed in a way that 1 + 1 = 3 that is the answer it will spit out.

In the same way if you're unsure that your own internal logic is sound then you can never rely on the output. If you're arguing that your brain is fooling you and that you can't trust your own sense of being then everything you say or do is suspect. If you don't trust your own internal logic, why would I? You're a computer programmed to say 1 + 1 = 3, you're wrong but you can't tell you're wrong because your own logic is flawed.

>Humans don't reach logical conclusions, they reach conclusions that are permitted by their electro-chemical logic. The output is already predetermined by the input.

Memory is shown ti be heavily flawed anyways.

If that's true then you're no more reliable than a program that is programmed with faulty logic. Hence, self defeating. You're arguing you're mentally incapable of forming a reliable argument. Are you capable of piecing together information and forming your own judgement or are you an automaton who is slave to sensory inputs?

You can't program something with faulty logic. You can only program it to compute something you didn't intend.

Arent we all deterministic slaves whether rash or considered judgements?

Which doesnt intuitively make sense...

Maybe it does though in a bayesian sense using uncertainties and evidence. And especially when using approximate forms of bayes. I.e. cost/complexity sensitive.

Determinism is false

A computer follows the logic of its components, its components operate according to the logic of physics.
If it is giving you the "wrong" answer, it's because you didn't understand what you asked it to compute, not because it didn't conform to logic.

>If it is giving you the "wrong" answer, it's because you didn't understand what you asked it to compute
Or you can simply program it to produce logically incoherent output. The computer is a slave to it's programming. If you program it to output 3 when asked to calculate 1 + 1 it must do that. It's an incorrect answer, but the computer has no freedom to use logic to produce the correct answer, it simply follows it's programming.

If you claim you are the same as the computer then there is the possibility that you too are producing incoherent output. You wouldn't even realize either, it would all seem entirely natural to your own internal sense of logic. "Of course 1 + 1 = 3! How could it be any other way!"

Automatons do not have the freedom to discern truth.

Ill restate my sentence with determinism/indeterminism. Makes no difference aslong as we can be decomposed into separable interacting parts...

What if brains dont work like computers. Arent programmed.

>If you program it to output 3 when asked to calculate 1 + 1 it must do that.
Yes.

>It's an incorrect answer
It's not.

>Automatons do not have the freedom to discern truth.
Depends on what you mean by true. We're all operating in these confines of logic together.

combination of functionalism and higher order which gives rise to complex processes and possibility of active programming with sentience
basically the mind is a pre-programmed computer and we can determine how it functions while we are the computers. from my own experience, this interpretation has been proven correct 100% of the time and I've never ran into any major road blocks.

Brains arent preprogrammed for anything. They are a set of filters that work on the basis of mean field factorizations, variational belief updating and so essentially work at maximising mutual information through relaxation. Brain areas trying to find mutually restrictive "equilibria " in their phase spaces.

>brains aren't pre-programmed for anything
I'm referring to extensions of natural instinct which produce sentience. we wouldn't exist as we are unless there's some inherent solid ordering to the base thought patterns, and this would have to stem from pre-programming of some kind. I'm not saying that the mind is hard pre-programmed, forgot to specify this. Somehow there's sets of arrangements which encourage frequency of higher tiers of function and the strength/fluidity of these arrangements are somehow genetic while adoption of new ones is possible through environmental means. Sentient thought produces more mental arrangements which allows for addition to a local environmental set and adoption by others. To specify what I mean by arrangement, it would be a complex set of ordering towards a wide selection of actions/behaviors and would overlap with others while each is active. it's like a connected part of a huge mass of loosely intertwined fibers viewable on the microscopic level which can be modified/built with a corresponding change while active and the mind utilizes active processing capability for this to occur. it's probably best to visualize this model for a partially sentient species like a gorilla or a dog, then you can see how adoption takes place in a more focused way and without too much to consider.

Just a reminder that this infograpgh is horribly inaccurate, unhelpful, and misleading to someone who haven't heard about these positions before.

Here check this out

quantamagazine.org/a-new-spin-on-the-quantum-brain-20161102/

Either substance dualism or emergent dualism.

epiphenomenalism is retarded
a) why the fuck would mental events exist if they can't affect anything
b) how can we know that mental events exist if they have no effect on anything

what s this post are you high user?