>thinks the Hard Problem of consciousness can never be solved

So, a hippie Deepak Chopra basically? Fuck no.

The fact that he's ignorant enough to be making such bold statements about one of the least understood subjects in modern society should answer that question. Plus, just look at how he dresses himself.

>>522647
>The fact that he's ignorant enough to be making such bold statements about one of the least understood subjects in modern society should answer that question.
A self-defeating argument.
>Plus, just look at how he dresses himself.
Wow. Let's get /fa/ on the Hard Problem of Consciousness.

>>522669
>A self-defeating argument.
how? the man is making a sweeping statement for which he not only does not, but can not have any evidence.
he can keep that shit for religious sermons and poetry readings. if you want to engage in academic discussion, you better bring evidence.

A cognition is required to be conscious, so hes wrong.

>>522691
>how? the man is making a sweeping statement for which he not only does not, but can not have any evidence.
Labeling David Chalmers as ignorant on the subject is a pretty 'bold statement' m8.

>he can keep that shit for religious sermons and poetry readings. if you want to engage in academic discussion, you better bring evidence.
I am fairly certain a Rhodes Scholar, who's completed his post-doc, and oh yeah, is one of the most respected specialists in his field knows a bit more about academic discussion then you.

If you think otherwise, here:
http://consc.net/papers.htm

Here's a bibliography of his academic papers. I'm sure you'll have no problem showing that they have no basis, and get that published in a peer reviewed journal.

File: 1438326329609.png (375KB, 1242x2208px) Image search: [Google]

375KB, 1242x2208px

>>522598
>Big Boys of English Speaking academia
>Singer
The philosophical equivalent of Judge Judy, Singer's self-contradictory pap ("abortion and infanticide are acceptable because these immature humans are incapable or rational preference" vs. "rationality is not a requirement for ethical conduct. Any irrational being will avoid pain, which is why cruelty to animals is unethical", which are flatly contradictory positions). Makes money by writing books that tell Liberals 'doing what you want is A-OK"
A buffoon.
>Chomsky
A decent linguist, his work in every other field is no more (or less) than self-serving rent seeking which he publicly admits that he, himself, does not believe.
Darn good at making a buck of gullible college students, but (unless you are speaking of linguistics, where he is very good) not a big academic.
>Dawkins
A mediocre-at-best scientist who will leave exactly zero mark on actual science, he became popular as a writer of PopSci books. When that income source dried up (because his theories were soundly thrashed by scientists) he switched to a series of popular books trashing what he thinks religious people might believe.
Never was a great thinker, never will be.
>Rorty
A man who counted on his readers having never heard of Gorgias, Rorty took facile rhetoric, relabeled it neopragmatism, and sold it like snake oil.
>Chalmers
About time an actual academic appeared. although, to be fair, while he does a fine job of reminding everyone of the hard problem, he has no answers. Which is no one's fault.
>Dennett
Refuses to use proper terms, mainly to hide that, deep down, he he knows any clear statement of his theories leads to eye-rolling
Not a serious academic.
.
This list is a list of "People that stupid people think are smart"

>>522739
This has to be my favorite copypasta so far

File: Axons firing in a neural cell.jpg (157KB, 439x273px) Image search: [Google]

157KB, 439x273px

>>522691
>you better bring evidence
But what sort of evidence would he need to bring to the table besides random data of measured neural activity?

The problem is that correlation does not lead to correlation, and that neuron firings from and to specific locations wouldn't exactly tell us the full story of conscious experience.

So I think Chalmers may be on to something that the Hard Problem is a tough one for materialists, but I fully reject his panpsychism

>>522790
>correlation does not lead to *causation
My bad

>>522790
>neuron firings from and to specific locations wouldn't exactly tell us the full story of conscious experience

If you just looked at a CPU flipping bits you wouldn't be able to tell if the computer was running Word or downloading porn. That doesn't mean there is a nonphysical aspect to the computer.

>>522739
Bretty good, not sure if legit troll or wikipedia scholar. More amusing than upsetting. The shitposted in the Conservative thread did more damage.

>>522809
Not the same person, but you don't have to be a non-physicalist to believe there's a hard problem of consciousness.

>>522859
I've never seen a convincing argument that there actually is such a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_correlates_of_consciousness

>>522598
>believes that everything that is material (like a pebble) has consciousness

I'm sure he must have responses but 1) How is he defining 'consciousness' [1a) if the definition is part of the problem wtf is he doing ascribing it to anything] and 2), if a pebble has consciousness and I break it in two, do both the fragments have a new consciousness? Does one of them have the original and one of them a new one? Does each have a separate copy of the original now moving through distinct worldlines? 3) What does it mean to presume that when I die, "I" have died, but my corpse still has consciousness?

I mean, consciousness is obviously a tough nut and I'm not outright dismissive of some problem of recursion possibly forbidding us from ever understanding it. But if literally everything has consciousness then I don't see how consciousness can continue to be an interesting property. The fact that we alone and maybe some animals possess it is what first caught our eye about it, right?

ok

>>525088
/thread

Materialists (wrongly) think consciousness doesn't exist, but Chalmers doesn't even understand what consciousness is. See this paper for more details: http://individual.utoronto.ca/benj/ae.pdf

>>527115
If materialists can't explain anything, they simply call it an "illusion". Just like time.

>>522598
Ye, the hard problem of vitalism is not solved either. This hard problem of consciousness is pointless to discuss.
>>522878
That is because there is none. It is just philosophy with their usual trolling thinking they are very clever.

>>527201
Vitalism is more similar to Nagel's view.

>>527196
Time exists in physics, and precisely how it works (which is indeed determined by physics) has significant consequences for metaphysics.

File: paul-davies-4.jpg (34KB, 250x381px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 250x381px

>>527220
>Time exists in physics
But they would posit that the "flow" of time is the illusion, which is more of a philosophical position they hold because they can't explain how consciousness can experience movement in a 4D block.

The problem of consciousness (we can drop the adjective "hard") only exists for physicalists, but panpsychists like Chalmers have an analogous and opposite problem, IE, the problem of other minds ("If each of us has the kind of direct knowledge we have of our own experience only in the case of those experiences that are ours, by what means could we acquire the concepts we have of mental states belonging to human beings other than ourselves? All experience presents as ours and necessarily presents as ours. Once again, the problem is not that we cannot observe the pains of others. What would be needed for the problem not to arise would be observing such pains, experiencing such pains as, indeed, the pains of others." - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#1.2). If physicalists deny the existence of something that very obviously exists, then Chalmers and co try to extrapolate the existence of something that by definition cannot be.

>>522809
>consciousness is a software
kek, stop applying computer language to us, programs are programmed, we arent

>>527393

mmm... potato potato

if something behaves according to and is an expression of systematized processed data in one form or another then how do you call it?

>>522614
He's nothing like Deepak Chopra. They only superficially resemble each other because Deepak is Indian and comes from a cultural background where panpsychism isn't that unusual, but Chalmers is much less obfuscating in his statements, being an analytic philosopher, and also doesn't rely on emotional arguments like Debug Chugra.

>>527414
>if something behaves according to and is an expression of systematized processed data in one form or another then how do you call it?
a projection of human desires

>>522809
Actually IIRC it used to be possible to crack passwords just by listening to the internal mechanics of a computer.

>>523036
YOU KANT NO NUFFIG YOU KANT NO NOFFING YOU KANT NO NOUFFING
STPP TRIGGERING FILOSOFY

>>527421

but then what are dna & rna?

>>527449
Looks to me you're the triggered one mate. You're visibly upset.

>>527414
Free will exists.

>>527455
Get some glasses then lol

>>523036
>But if literally everything has consciousness then I don't see how consciousness can continue to be an interesting property.
Because the consciences are of varying complexity.

Basically, Chalmers holds that there's no sudden dropping off point of consciousness.

We can almost all accept other high mammals and some birds have consciousness of some form. Even down through all animals. Things get messy around plants and single celled organisms.

If you accept that single celled organisms have consciousness, why not viruses, and if viruses what about other form of inert matter.

He's not suggesting that your corpse will continue to have a rich inner life and experience. But that the difference between a living body and a dead one is qualitative, not categorical.

So to answer your questions, the two fragments likely have 'distinct' 'new' consciousnesses, but they're so simplistic that meaningful differences can't be drawn between them. They both have the consciousness of a rock.

>>527460

im not saying it doesent, i wasnt mentioning free will at all, im just saying if you have structured information based on which an entire system develops and behaves then its almost like programing, as in literaly humans making programs, is a iteration of the same from an iteration of the same from an iteration of the same and so on...

>>527449

This anon is certainly telegraphing high levels of buttpain to the world.

>>527460
Prove it

>>527503
Raise one of your hands in the air. Which one was it? Why that one, and not the other? Because that is the one you chose. There, you have proven to yourself that you have free will.

>>527485

i edited that wrong before posting, realy what i meant was, its not exactly like you can say 'this is almost the same as a program', but the other way around as in 'a program is almost the same as this', in the sense that obviously such things occur in reality, theres some dimension to reality that tends to behave this way, procesing and systemazing information

>>522598
>the hard problem of consciousness
Can anyone quantify exactly what this is supposed to mean? Self-awareness? If I were inclined toward a 100% natural view of science and philosophy, I'd just say that it's a result of having a more complicated brain and nervous system. Simply a higher level of cognitive function. I'm babby-tier in the field of philosophy, so if anything I'm saying sounds stupid, forgive me. But if I am to accept naturalism, I'd boil it down to this. Every action undertaken by any human ever boils down to some combination of three things.

1. Instinctual will to survive.

2. The increase of "happiness", (the releasing of chemicals in the brain such as dopamine that make you feel good.)

3. The reduction of physical or mental suffering.
>>527449
I'm inclined to think that you can't truly know anything. It's simply a matter of how your brain processes certain information and how that makes you feel.

>>527485
>structured information based on which an entire system develops and behaves
So you're allowing for different potential possibilities for the way for the system to develop and behave given the same information?

>>527510
I asked proofs not meme farts

>>527519
>Can anyone quantify exactly what this is supposed to mean?
Qualia

>>527521
Your free will is something you can only prove to yourself. This should be pretty obvious.

>>527519
We can know things. Knowledge is just a kind of correspondence to some degree of precision between thought and phenomena. In fact, as long as thought exists, knowledge cannot not exist.

>>527538
>sweet opinions on JTB bro

>>527527
>This should be pretty obvious.

dropped

>>527520

that seems to be alowing itself, nothing i can do about it even if i wanted

if youre implying determinism then again, off course things will always occur as they occur but that all sounds like a bunch of tautologies

>>527542
Belief is not a condition for knowledge, and in fact belief is an inherently faulty concept.

>>527449

I'm not 'triggering' philosophy, I'm engaging in it (on a very simplistic level). Philosophers do disagree and all of my objections are encompassed by various philosophical positions standing in opposition to a Chalmers-style account of consciousness.

>>527480
>Basically, Chalmers holds that there's no sudden dropping off point of consciousness.

This must be very basic indeed, unless he's arguing that *the consciousness we experience* survives the death of our bodies? Otherwise death would represent a very sudden dropping-off point indeed.

>Even down through all animals.

I would say insects are almost certainly not conscious.

>So to answer your questions, the two fragments likely have 'distinct' 'new' consciousnesses, but they're so simplistic that meaningful differences can't be drawn between them. They both have the consciousness of a rock.

This is what I'm getting at, though, when I question how consciousness can continue to be an interesting phenomenon on Chalmers' account. To say that a rock has consciousness, and that its fragments have consciousnesses virtually indistinguishable from the 'parent' consciousness, seems to reduce in effect to stating that a rock is a physical object and that its fragments are physical objects equal in combined mass etc to the original. By defining consciousness as something that everything possesses, I think Chalmers makes it impossible to speak meaningfully about consciousness.

And if *I* am conscious and *my body* is conscious (in whatever limited degree) after my death, then isn't my body conscious in that same limited degree even while I'm alive?

>>527510
>Raise one of your hands in the air. Which one was it? Why that one, and not the other? Because that is the one you chose. There, you have proven to yourself that you have will.

Fixed.

>believes that everything that is material has consciousness
I used to think this as a child. Now imagine its actually true. Just imagine the SJW's protesting about people who treat their property poorly. Heck, there wouldn't even be a property, it would just be mutual arrangements between object and a man. White sissies would go around in streets, throwing objects at themselves, so they are punished by them for misusing them for centuries. Creating of new objects would be seen as violating the original objects' freedom. Every time you would want to fucking sit, you would have to think of the chair feeling your ass, and you would have to apologize to it for that.

>>527558
It's 'free' because you could have chosen the other option.

>>527519
The hard problem is explaining how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. It is practically the same as the olf body-mind problem. Easy problems of consciousness are approachable by current science methods. In short, hard problem is unsolvable.

>>527561

Or could I? You're begging the question, here.

>>527523
Seems kind of silly, imo, and I say this as someone who actually does believe in the existence of God and the soul. I don't mean that it sounds silly to say that there are things out there that cannot be accounted for through hard science and physical proof, but only that the concept of qualia, ie science not being able to account for how a human being's mind perceives their environment, from what I know, is basically debunked. Maybe at the time when it was theorized, when we had little understanding of physiology and the neurological makeup of human brain's, was it a truly interesting theory, but it seems to me like it's basically been left in the dust. For instance, why does something make someone happy? Because the nervous system releases chemicals that produce a pleasant feeling. Why we have those chemicals in our brains can be accounted for through the theory of natural selection. But, if there's something I'm missing here, I'm all ears.

>>527559

it wouldnt realy mean that at all, it would mean that there is some zero level of consciusness present in all material systems, or just in reality as such, and all that differs are forms and functions, but since they do differ things have different forms and functions, so youre not missusing a chair by sitting on it, thats its function according to its form

>>527572
>Because the nervous system releases chemicals that produce a pleasant feeling.

This is just restating the problem. Why is there a subjective alteration produced by this objective phenomenon (release of chemicals)? How does that come to pass?

Understand: the issue is not *whether* that is what happens, but *how it can be* that that is what happens.

>>527570
I don't see how I'm begging the question. I should have prefaced that, as far as you're concerned, you could have chosen the other option, and that shows to you that you have free will. I mean, maybe this somehow isn't true in your particular case, but it's how most people think about themselves, and I know that it's the correct way for me to think about my actions.

>>527556
>I would say insects are almost certainly not conscious.
To go with the Thomas Nagel definition here, does that mean that it's impossible to have the experience of being an insect?

>in effect to stating that a rock is a physical object and that its fragments are physical objects equal in combined mass etc to the original
More or less, yes.

>And if *I* am conscious and *my body* is conscious (in whatever limited degree) after my death, then isn't my body conscious in that same limited degree even while I'm alive?
Yes. Your body being conscious while you're alive is how we're having a conversation.

>By defining consciousness as something that everything possesses, I think Chalmers makes it impossible to speak meaningfully about consciousness.
I'm not certain Chalmers is correct, but I am certain his panpsychism allows us to speak more meaningfully about consciousness then Descartian Dualism, and certainly more than strict materialism. If consciousness is a property of all things, then we can talk about what makes human consciousness distinct, and how it relates to the world around it. In essence, if Chalmer's theory makes it impossible to speak meaningfully about Consciousness, atomic theory makes it impossible to speak meaningfully about matter.

>>527559
>Every time you would want to fucking sit, you would have to think of the chair feeling your ass, and you would have to apologize to it for that.
A chair does not have a sensory apparatus.Even if it had consciousness it can't feel anything done to it.

>>527581
I'm also going to throw out here, rarely acknowledged in this debate that science is 'cheating' when it even attempts to engage in the problem, that is, you're actually practicing a psuedo-science.

There has yet to be, and by definition cannot be, any physical evidence of mental phenomenon. I can't produce evidence of my own mental phenomenon to my senses, and I certainly can't produce any evidence of other people's mental phenomenon.

So it seems straightforward that science cannot even begin to explain mental phenomenon, without getting into the specific problems with that.

>>527590

But you seem to be saying that so long as we don't directly perceive ourselves to be determined, we should regard ourselves as not determined. I find that unsatisfactory as an account. It's certainly justifiable as a pragmatic attitude, but it can't form the underpinning of a definitive statement "Free will exists". You just can't get there from here.

>>527598
>To go with the Thomas Nagel definition here, does that mean that it's impossible to have the experience of being an insect?

In a technical sense, yes. Computer programs respond to stimuli and, pace Chalmers & Co., nobody even suspects *they* are conscious. So presumably, insects have some means whereby they respond to stimuli, but I wouldn't call this 'consciousness'.

>Yes. Your body being conscious while you're alive is how we're having a conversation.

I don't understand, more on which below.

>I am certain his panpsychism allows us to speak more meaningfully about consciousness then Descartian Dualism, and certainly more than strict materialism. If consciousness is a property of all things, then we can talk about what makes human consciousness distinct, and how it relates to the world around it.

I don't agree - I think we will simply end up adding 'consciousness' as an empty term on each side of any given 'equation'. When we talk about what makes human consciousness distinct from the consciousnesses of eg matter, we will simply end up describing the same phenomena that currently prompt us to regard humans as 'conscious' and to conclude that simple matter is not conscious. I don't see that any actual progress will therefore have been made.

Physicalism etc can't currently account for consciousness. This does not suggest that they never will be able to, and certainly doesn't justify the creation of some black-box conception of 'consciousness' as 'a property all things possess'. Doing that offers us no insight into consciousness and confers no advantage over identifying consciousness as "a phenomenon we can't yet account for".

>>527561
You chose that option because of every single thing that has affected your life up until you chose that option.
It is no more of an act of free will than a rock impacting the floor after being dropped.

>>527674
The rock had no will.

It doesn't matter what made you feel like making one choice instead of another. Not to this issue. If your choice had no bearing on your action, then it would be a different story.

>>527581
It seems that the answer to that question is circumstantial, but I'm not yet convinced that it's unsolvable. Again, from a purely naturalistic point of view. Take the example of sex. We're pretty much hard-wired by natural selection and biology to enjoy it, (at least us men). This obviously doesn't apply to absolutely everyone, because the makeups of our brains are not all the same, but we could consider that that person is an abnormality, and would have been unlikely to pass their genes on. Then we consider the environmental factors. You can sum them up by saying that natural selection rewards those who fit in well with groups and communities and allows them to pass their genes on. So why do people react differently to similar circumstances? Genetic variation is necessary to a healthy species. Our large brains, specifically, allow us to adapt depending on the challenges we face. There are also a whole host of traits that we are able to display within our species that help us to survive and pass genes on. Social prowess, good looks, brute strength, exceptional intelligence etc. Our specific genes determine our personality, how we react to certain things, and how it changes in reaction to certain things.

>>527685
>It doesn't matter what made you feel like making one choice instead of another.

How can it not matter? How, in ceding that there even IS something that "made me feel" that way, are you not ceding that our will is unfree?

>>527691

Yes, all of this is fine, but it's completely orthogonal to the problem of consciousness. It's as if I asked you how an internal combustion engine works and you started explaining the history of the automobile. You might have a perfect understanding of the history of the automobile, but telling me about it doesn't explain how engines work.

I agree that it's premature to identify consciousness as not explicable in principle, for what it's worth.

>>527581
Subjectivity is just a flawed representation of the physical. External reality, your own body states: you can't perceive these things accurately.

>>527713
>Subjectivity is just a flawed representation of the physical.

OK, but we're not asking whether or not subjective states correspond perfectly in some sense with the objective phenomena that prompt them. We're asking how it is that observable changes in physical states can prompt changes in mental states. Whether those observable changes merely *prompt* the mental changes, or whether they are in fact simply the 'external' sign of those changes, we still don't understand how that relationship exists. We don't even have a model for how it *might* exist.

>>527726
>We don't even have a model for how it *might* exist.
Well, there is a quantum model by Hameroff and Penrose, but nobody takes them seriously

>>527618
That's not my argument. My argument is that we (the royal "we") perceive our actions as moving us through a space (in fact, an arborescence) of possibilities. It seems to me plainly true that what path I take isn't determined by an algorithm (though it could certainly be described by one (more likely an infinite class of them)).

>>527674
The things that affect our life aren't determining factors, but limiting factors.

>>527700
Why? Why are the origins, or history of the thing that determine if it's free or not?

It's like you define "free" as a state that is impossible in a world of causality.

Why would you do that? You are just wasting a perfectly fine word by attaching it to a useless concept.

Better concept of freedom: your actions derived from your will. That from which your will derives is a more indirect cause.

And, yeah, you can define will and other mental states as emergent properties or functions of physical structures, if you feel the need to.

>>527609
>There has yet to be, and by definition cannot be, any physical evidence of mental phenomenon
There's evidence, but it's not physical for epistemological reasons, IE physics only allows intersubjective verification, but you can still determine the existence of something by verifying it by yourself.

>I can't produce evidence of my own mental phenomenon to my senses
Yes you can, and in fact, you can't even avoid doing so.

>>527736

All you're saying is that it seems obvious to you that your actions aren't determined. That's not even a *bad* argument.

>>527767
>Why? Why are the origins, or history of the thing that determine if it's free or not?

It's just that you referred to the existence of a history which "made you feel" a certain way. I think the implication for the "freedom" of feeling that way are obvious.

But if you're defending a compatibilist account, then fine. But in that case I don't see why you're wasting your time with these bare assertions - you should set to justifying the quality of culpability in a given action *even ceding* its having been determined. That's a completely different conversation from the one you've been pursuing.

>Better concept of freedom: your actions derived from your will.

I don't want to be a dick, but this just defines all willed actions as 'free'. That is plainly a far more useless definition of 'freedom' than 'not arising from preceding circumstances'. That simply makes 'freedom' an uninterrogable quality of all willed actions. It makes 'free will' a pleonasm.

>>527726
Your mental states are functions of your brain, so, in a way, mental states are brain states. You say you are happy, that means your brain is happy. That seems an oversimplification? Well, then define happiness has a function of the physical structure that is your brain. Makes no functional difference, but "happy" is a nice shortcut to get your meaning across.

To say one causes the other is to misconstrue their relation: mental states are how your brain's workings are felt. The physical changes aren't what prompts mental changes nor are they external signs of mental changes anymore than feeling a rush is an internal sign that your adrenaline is up.

>>527799
>Your mental states are functions of your brain, so, in a way, mental states are brain states. You say you are happy, that means your brain is happy.

Yes, I understand mind-brain identity as a concept. What MBI doesn't do is account for how it is that the brain is also a mind. And again, I feel the need to stress that pointing out this absence of explanation shouldn't be taken as an argument that MBI is in fact false - it's certainly my default assumption and imo is the only reasonable default assumption in this day and age.

So let's just cede mind-brain identity - let's take it as read. All this does is place the question of consciousness within a particular framework. It doesn't actually answer that question.

So by analogy, if I tell you that the Moon influences the tides, and you ask me "How?" I will not have answered your question if I repeat "The Moon influences the tides."

>>527798
>All you're saying is that it seems obvious to you that your actions aren't determined. That's not even a *bad* argument.
Is saying that the sky is blue because I've seen it being blue a bad argument? My actions aren't determined because I've seen them being undetermined. You can find my argument up here, btw: >>527510. If that's not good enough for you, then I guess there's nothing I can do, which is a little upsetting as you seem intelligent, but at least I have the comfort that the venerable mathematician John Conway agrees with me.

>>527799

mental states are states of the organism, the state is total in the sense that it is the combination of both your emotional state, your nerw system functions and your momentary neurological functioning, its all one 'state', and its operative in the sense that emotions actualy set behavior

>>527798
>But if you're defending a compatibilist account, then fine. But in that case I don't see why you're wasting your time with these bare assertions - you should set to justifying the quality of culpability in a given action *even ceding* its having been determined. That's a completely different conversation from the one you've been pursuing.
>you should set to justifying the quality of culpability in a given action *even ceding* its having been determined
You want to argue justice? It serves a purpose, it's not an end onto itself (suck on that, Kant), I feel. I don't want to put people behind bars or hurt them because they "deserve" it, I want these people to stay away because they are dangerous. If they could be rehabilitated without adding any more suffering to the world, that would be pretty nice.

>I don't want to be a dick, but this just defines all willed actions as 'free'. That is plainly a far more useless definition of 'freedom' than 'not arising from preceding circumstances'. That simply makes 'freedom' an uninterrogable quality of all willed actions. It makes 'free will' a pleonasm.
Yeah, I was keeping it short. Personally, I find that there are degrees of freedom. Making a choice is a subjective experience and people can feel more or less in control of their actions, according to circunstances. If I had a gun pointed to my head right now I'd feel a lot less free. Most people would feel I would be acting under the will of the gunman. I may feel less responsible for my actions when I'm under more duress, and others may agree.

>>527711
>I agree that it's premature to identify consciousness as not explicable in principle, for what it's worth.
Well, if the question is, "How exactly does consciousness work?", then yeah I agree with you. I obviously misunderstood and answered something more specific. I feel pretty confident that science will be able to understand the human brain to an extensive degrer in the not so distant future. I could be wrong, I suppose. I'm an expert in neither philosophy, neurology, or biochemistry. Just a guy on the internet. :^)

>>527825
>My actions aren't determined because I've seen them being undetermined.

No, you haven't. You don't know what undetermined actions 'look like' (nobody does). Nor do you know what determined actions 'look like' (again, nobody does - not even venerable mathematician John Conway).

You know what *actions* look like (everybody does), but in this discussion about whether or not actions are *free*, you're simply pointing to all the features common to actions and stating that those are the attributes of "free" actions.

If you want to talk about free will, raising your hands and authorities, you're better off going with Searle. He makes the same case as venerable mathematician John Conway appears to, and has the benefit of actual authority in this sphere. Although, AFAIK Searle is unlikely to describe his actions as 'undetermined'.

>>527828
I can agree with emotions being total states of organisms that prepare them for certain behavioral modules, but without brains there are no mental states.

But I feel we are adding too much complexity to this argument. Not everybody here is a biologist, an ethologist or a psychologist, so let's keep the lies-to-children going, OK?

>>527815
>>527815
>So by analogy, if I tell you that the Moon influences the tides, and you ask me "How?" I will not have answered your question if I repeat "The Moon influences the tides."
I think a better analogy for the mind-body issue would be a moving object and it's kinectic energy. You ask "how does kinectic energy move the object?" and expect me to answer with something other than a tautology.

>>527833
>You want to argue justice?

Well, not really, or not directly, anyway. Praise and blame, whether they're coherent concepts assuming that all our actions are determined.

I mean FWIW I'm not aware of any pessimists who think prisons should be abolished - I certainly don't, and I agree that rehabilitation etc is preferable and punishment outside of consequentialist-based deterrence theory is savagery.

>If I had a gun pointed to my head right now I'd feel a lot less free. Most people would feel I would be acting under the will of the gunman. I may feel less responsible for my actions when I'm under more duress, and others may agree.

Sure, but this can be dealt with through preference theory. Whether I am free or not, the reason I obey the gunman is that I prefer obeying him to being shot. If the gunman is removed, I am in truth no more or less free than I was when he was there - it's just that a strongly disfavoured option (getting shot for disobeying the gunman) has been removed.

Even the slave in chains is free, or not, if you get me.

>>527874
I agree with everything in this post.

>>527863
>You ask "how does kinectic energy move the object?" and expect me to answer with something other than a tautology.

Well, you'll need to explain about time and space and so forth as well, presumably.

>>527852
You only mention Searle because he's famous. My favorite philosopher on the topic is Carl Ginet.

>>527863
I just realized that my argument made it sound like I stand for some duality. Allow me to rephrase:

I think a better analogy for the brain-mind issue would be a moving object and it's kinectic energy. You ask "how does kinectic energy move the object?" and expect me to answer with something other than a tautology: kinetic energy as something apart from movement is an abstraction made possible by language. In reality, kinetic energy and movement are basically the same thing understood differently and can't be dissociated.

>>527897
Gotta showa.

>>527894
>You only mention Searle because he's famous.

Yes.

>>527852
>Searle
>'i believe consciousness is irreducible, but i'm still a materialist'
Meme philosopher

>>527905
Triggered/10

I suppose critics of reductionism like Dennett and Popper are meme philosophers as well?

>>527510
>Why that one, and not the other?
Well, let's see. Go ahead, raise one of your hands.

Assuming you raised your right hand, I'd say it's because you're right-handed or you were conditioned to raise your right hand, perhaps in school. If it was your left hand, it might be because you're left handed, or it's the hand that wasn't holding the mouse, or you were conditioned to raise your left hand in school.
If none of those answers seem satisfying, it might be that you raised the opposite hand because you felt the need to oppose your natural tendencies to prove that anon wrong.
Even if you closed your eyes, cleared your mind of all thoughts and raised a hand at "random", the choice of your hand was probably based on a reaction to a "hunch" or itch. Afterwards, the choice might have vaguely felt right or wrong, depending on your reaction to the stimulus.
In all those cases, your choice was determined by several internal or external factors as well as your "thought processes" (meaning the way your neurons fired based on the stimuli.) If nothing else, your choice was indeed determined by your brain's configuration, because you would have surely chosen differently if you had been lobotomized beforehand.

>>527984
>you would have surely chosen differently
Err, that should be "your choice would have been based on a different thought process." You might have chosen the same hand, but for different reasons. You don't choose to play "scissors" in the first round of RPS for the same reasons you choose to play "scissors" in the second round of RPS or in another round the next day.

>>527863

all right but, a brain is an already integrated part of the organism to start with, no? so without organisms there are no brains... and no mental states

just saying

>>527510
Holy shit that was bad.

>>528096
"I choose A over B because I chose A over B". LFW defended skillfully.

>>527774
>There's evidence, but it's not physical for epistemological reasons
Well then hurp durp, that evidence is not scientifically viable.

>Yes you can, and in fact, you can't even avoid doing so.
Explain to me how I can physically observe my own sensation of physically observing something.

>>528102
>LFW defended skillfully.

I'm pretty sure it's CFW, though I admit the guy himself seems unclear on that point.

>>528003
To add to what this anon is saying, it is impossible to determine free will, because each action or "choice" only happens once in time. You can't hold an experiment where you ask me to raise my hand eight different times, because each of those eight different times would be a different question. I will only ever have one response to those questions, and it will be the one I have chosen.

Free will is not a thing that exists or even can exist. You can't think thoughts before you think them, and in the most direct sense our subconscious dictates literally everythingwe think or do. How it's your 'will' if you're not even conscious of it until it arises into your perception some time after the brain makes a decision you're free to explain.

File: FoxNews2.gif (1MB, 280x210px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 280x210px

>>528990
>subconscious

And yes, I'm aware of the experiments you're referring to.

If human consciousness is made up of something as stupid as individual neurons communicating, why wouldn't there be a consciousness made up of individual humans (that obviously couldn't communicate very well or be perceived very well by a single human)?

>>529041
>obviously couldn't communicate very well or be perceived very well by a single human

Think for a minute about why you think it's obvious that it couldn't be perceived very well by a single human.

>>529041
There's no reason why something like that couldn't work in principle. In some sense at least, like applied to electronics. Neurons have a much more direct and reliable connection than humans.

>>529045
It's like how an individual person can't create a modern computer because it takes too many lifetimes of specialization, together they can create a super-human creation with from a super-human intelligence / skill set.

>>529041
Because we're not neurons. They're not communicating in the formal sense as a computer does but there's a cause and effect chain in neurons. That's why the nation of China isn't conscious.

>>529063

Not really what I was getting at, but OK - does what you've just said bear any real relation to the reason you think one of your individual neurons can't perceive your consciousness?

I suspect it doesn't - I suspect you think one of your individual neurons can't perceive your consciousness because you don't believe your individual neurons are themselves conscious, and therefore you don't believe they can, as individual neurons, perceive anything.

Assuming that to be the case, why would other relational analogues simply 'scale up' from neuron:brain::human:super-brain?

>>529086
Individual neurons can't perceive anything, individual humans can. Come on, this is basic shit mate.

>>529122

I agree that it's basic shit. But it's also the point I'm making, rather than a response to the point I'm making. *Given* that individual neurons can't perceive anything, and yet when connected, make something that does, why would someone think that individual humans, which can perceive, would, when 'connected' in some very loose and abstracted way, make something else that can also perceive? Why would that make sense?

>>529132
Connecting in a loose or abstract way might not cut it for conscience to arise. You might as well go look for consciousness in an asteroid field. Now, connect their brains directly and we're bound to see some fun shit.