Solving the hard problem of consciousness

>>2090642
However, there is also the phenomena of the electromagnetic field which hypothetically could connect all of these events with a unified force, therefore solving the "binding problem". However, we run into a similar problem because the electromagnetic field is quantized as discrete entities, electromagnetic waves.

Although, let us treat the electromagnetic field in classical terms and see what we can learn. The first problem is that why should electromagnetic forces produce consciousness? It seems that random perturbations in a field has no good reason for producing awaneness, so that the electromagnetic field theory runs into its own "hard problem." What would make a pattern of energy so special as to produce awareness? There is also experimental evidence that shows that changes in the EMF do not produce changes in awareness, which is the opposite of what we should expect if it where the case that the EMF is awareness. Finally, there is the problem of infromational processing. How is one part(current of electromagnetic force) informed of all other parts? How does information travel between parts of the field? They don't. It would have to be a non-local interaction that can explain the informational structure of awareness. We run into a conundrum where our current understanding of science can not produce a physical system which adequately explains the phenomena of consciousness.

>>2090647

However, we can use the flaws of the brain(and EMF) argument to produce what we should expect from a physical system that explains consciousness. Consciousness is a self-refrential knowing, that is to say, you know that you know and this process is contained in a substantial unity. Much like how computers know certain programs or are informed of them, your consciousness is a process that is informed of its own informational processesing. This informational processing is integrated harmoniously. Looking at it from a reductionist stand point, a single act of knowing informs a congolomeration of knowing of itself and simultaneously is informed by a congolmeration of knowing. Each facet of knowing would interact with all other facets of knowing, and all facets of knowing would interact with each. This process is also physically unified through a substratum.

Investigating this substratum produces a knowable physical system that explains consciousness. First and foremost would be the soul. The soul would be a monad(simple physical unit) with an abstract nature of awareness much like how electrons have the abstract nature of a negative charge. We can also try to use the current known phenomena and invent a new phenomena which is made up of these, which possesses the qualities we are looking for. It could be a super-imposed wave of quantumwaves which are all "entangled non-locally" (as posited by Karl Pribram) or it could be a sublte-energy field which unifies all of the electromagnetic waves into a seamless whole, possessing the integrated informational processing we have come to expect.

>>2090653

When we come to a crossroad of hypothesises, we often turn to Occam's razor. Normally we try to use old phenomena to explain new phenomena but as the phenomena we are analyzing are all new physical phenomena, occam's razor doesn't help much yet. Then we try to use the most simple and elegant explanation. That, inmy opinion, that would be the soul. I think it is a simpler structure (but would require another mental monad to connect it to the brain), and it is certainly the most elegant which fits the greater design of the universe. Trying to use the other phenomena, complicates matters and does not have as much explanatory power.

What is the purpose of the brain then? The brain could be a manner of empowering the soul with energy.

That is why I believe in the soul.

tl;dr
>That is why I believe in the soul.
not even going to bother

not everyone is self aware

are they soul less?

>>2090797
You do yourself a disservice.

>>2090805
No I think all conscious entities possess limited awareness and therefore a soul. All the way down to the flatworm(anything with a brain).

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Interdasting

These subjects are mostly up to what you choose to believe in.
It's not impossible that a "soul" exists, but you can't prove it does either. I guess you'll know when you die.

>>2091287
Yes, it is not deductive or even empirical proof but using abductive reasoning I have shown that the strongest argument is the one in support of the soul.

>>2090642
>but all that this argument has done is shown that consciousness and the brains events are correlated and it has made no further attempt to explain how the brain could produce awareness.
Explain how the soul could produce awareness.

>>2091790
I did
>Consciousness is a self-refrential knowing, that is to say, you know that you know and this process is contained in a substantial unity. Much like how computers know certain programs or are informed of them, your consciousness is a process that is informed of its own informational processesing. This informational processing is integrated harmoniously. Looking at it from a reductionist stand point, a single act of knowing informs a congolomeration of knowing of itself and simultaneously is informed by a congolmeration of knowing. Each facet of knowing would interact with all other facets of knowing, and all facets of knowing would interact with each. This process is also physically unified through a substratum.

Investigating this substratum produces a knowable physical system that explains consciousness. First and foremost would be the soul. The soul would be a monad(simple physical unit) with an abstract nature of awareness much like how electrons have the abstract nature of a negative charge.

>>2091840
The negative charge of an electron is a function of its quantum properties. What is the nature of the relationship between the soul and "awareness", and why is awareness a very low-level phenomenon like charge rather than a high-level phenomenon (like let's say the fuel efficiency of a car).

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IMHO, it is not even a problem. Your brain is a giant self-learning mechanism (muh neural networks) and "unity of consciousness" is an illusion because all the hearing, seeing, thinking and overall perception happens in the same head.

Thinking is muted speaking. When you perform thinking the same regions of brain activate as when you speak, but the activity is weaker. The same applies to all mental processes.

>>2091947
This. It's all a machine, there is no reason to think otherwise and the more it goes, the more it seems like it is.

Individuality isn't really a thing, just like forests aren't really things in themselves.

>>2091927
I was just using that as an analogy to help others understand.

Another way of looking at it is it's informational structure.
We start with an empty monad. Then we implant information into it, a specific codex of information, awareness. You can imagine a sphere with infinite facets of knowing all intertwined with one another.

Now how does awareness turn off and on?

That's what the energy of the brain is for. It empowers the soul.

Hypothetically we could implant the quality of constant activity into the soul, like how matter can be considered implanted with the information of energy or motion, but that is not what we find. It would be constant awareness without sleep.

>>2091947
>>2091975

You can claim consciousness is an illusion but that doesn't add up with our observations.

>>2091983
>We start with an empty monad. Then we implant information into it, a specific codex of information, awareness
If you can just implant information and get awareness, then why do we need the soul? Why can't we just implant awareness into the brain?

>like how matter can be considered implanted with the information of energy or motion,
You're going to need to define how you are using the word information here. And how the soul having more energy would change the way that the brain is structured, because otherwise it still needs sleep in order to consolidate memory etc.

>>2090642
you are a fucking idiot.

>>2091996
you fucking idiot,.

>>2090642
System dynamics
Biosemiotics

>>2090939
>>2090915

we already disproved you on /sci/ bitch. stop harrassing the brainlets.

>>2091287

how can you prove something you cant define idiot.

>>2091377

we disproved you. now leave.

fucking idiot

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>>2091947
Not true, non linguistic perception and thinking is much more prevalent than self conscious symbolic thought.
Fucking Cartesian dogmatics get off my board.

>>2092058
Claiming that the brain is the source of awareness is hardly disproving me.

You just claim that there is no hard problem of consciousness, which is stupid. You really don't know how it works, you just have a vague conception of correlated activities.

>>2092071
fuck off hes right and you're a cunt.

>>2092103
no, you have no idea how it works. there is no hard problem.

>>2092103
How exactly do dualists rationalize the effects of brain damage, or even mundane things like drug chemistry? I get the idea of saying the brain is only correlating with actual conciousness/thought as a devil's advocate thing, but if the brain just happened to be around while the soul was doing the heavy lifting specific brain injuries shouldn't produce such specific disruptions of functions, and drugs shouldn't work at all unless they too have some non-material component.

>>2092023
Because that would be messy. The monad acts as the substantial unity that awareness needs.

Information is merely the structure or order of something. But in our world we have meant structure to mean physical structure, so I use the term abstract order. It physically contains an abstract order, or is informed.

>>2092103
why bother writing it down, when ive seen you post on /sci/ and get shut the fuck down.

>>2092144
evidence bitch.

>>2092133
If there is no hard problem then why do neuroscientists study the hard problem?
Most confusing, isn't it?

>>2092152
neuroscientists don't study it....

>>2092150
cartesian analysis based on natural observations.

>>2092163
no; give it to me in a way that i understand. you think 6 words will prove your thesis? fuck off.

>>2090642
>depression
>bipolar disorder
>alzheimers
>split personalities
>schizophrenia
>various mental disorders/illnesses

All of these things have real-world causes. They weren't caused by demon possession or sin. The consciousness is very clearly physical and affected by physical phenomena, you don't need spooks to justify it. Look, buddy, we're all struggling with the fear of death, but there's no need to lie to ourselves.

>>2092157
http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/#SH3b

>>2092144
>substantial unity that awareness needs.
Why does awareness "need" substantial unity?

>>2092178
Like I said, the brain is correlated with the soul, so we should expect to see a cause and effect relationship.

Im a libertarian so I believe in free will, I believe that the soul causes changes in the brain, and the brain causes changes in the soul.

Nothing to be scared of.

>>2092183
"binding problem of consciousness"

>tfw too intelligent to be an atheist, but also too intelligent to believe in any man-made religion

>>2092181
you sent me nothing interesting bitch. you just sent me encyclopedia descriptions; some of them my beliefs, with one criticism which is shit.

>>2092205
They base the explantory power of their study on the hard problem of consciousness.

>>2092191
you know shit. you dont even know about what binding problems are in psychology and neuroscience. They aren't unsolvable problems bitch.

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What if we die every time we fall asleep and we just don't know it because the new version of us has the same memories?

>>2092212
Then I would be "dead" wrong.

>>2092210
no they don't. the ones i agreed on are embodied, enactivist and reducible ones; they dont need to have anything to do with hard problems. and infact embodied or enactivist ones; the ones that i think are most useful, were never even created in any context of hard problems of consciousness so fuck off fat pig.

>>2092212
if you clone yourself, would the clone be you?

>>2092191
I'm not sure why that would require the unity of a monad and not the unity of a well connected system.

>>2092245
There is physical space between neurons.
It needs a unified structure to unite all of these separate entities.
I cover why I don't believe it's the electromagnetic field in my earlier posts.

>>2092224
>no hard problem of consciousness
>multiple theories of how consciousness is produced by the brain

>>2092279
>There is physical space between neurons.
There is physical space between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons. There is physical space between the atoms within a molecule, within the molecules of a substance, etc. Are these not coherent unified systems? The space between neurons is crossed by neurotransmitters in any case.

>It needs a unified structure to unite all of these separate entities.
The brain is a unified structure uniting separate entities that work in tandem.

Why do people who know next to nothing about physics attempt to use physics to explain their magical woowoo? It just makes you look ridiculous as well as stupid and dishonest.

tl;dr- OP is a faggot.

>>2092311
No, they are not unified systems but the force fields are physically connected(plausible unity)

The brain is not unified unless we take into account a classical electromagnetic field.

There must be discernment from traditional sense of unity, which we use when describing things working together in concert, and a physical unity, like a quantum wave function.

>>2092339
Don't need a masters in physics to understand why our understanding of consciousness is erroneous.

>>2092363

No, but you DO need more than a highschool understanding of science to use it to explain... well anything, really, but especially something as nonsensical as "the soul".

>>2092354
>There must be discernment from traditional sense of unity, which we use when describing things working together in concert, and a physical unity,
Why can awareness only be supported by the latter and not the former? Why does the communication of neurotransmitters between neurons not count?

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>>2091947

/thread

'Hard problem' of consciousness is 'hard' precisely because the thing it's trying to solve for doesn't exist. No one will ever 'solve' it except by realizing there's nothing to solve.

>>2090642
Counsciousness, or self-awareness to be more precise, is the brain's own appraisal of it's own activity. Mind states are brain states or, if you want to be anal about it, mind states are the brains' intrepretations of it's own states.

Assuming mind=brain offers a theory with unrivaled power of prediction and it's an overall vision with less useless moving parts, less room for baseless assumptions.

>(we go to sleep at night and wake up as the same entity the next day)
subjective, your self identifies itself with your past selves and lacks memory of all those times it wasn't activated (it can't remember not existing, so it assumes that it hasn't stopped existing), creating the impression that it is a stable property

Don't worry though. God gets you an heavenly body if you do good works, so you just get uploaded to a better brain when you die.

>>2092354
>The brain is not unified unless we take into account a classical electromagnetic field.

Well, why wouldn't we take into account something we now exists?

>There must be discernment from traditional sense of unity, which we use when describing things working together in concert, and a physical unity, like a quantum wave function.

I have no clue what this means. Did you mean to use the word "discernment"? Is your claim really that we have to be able to distinguish between our conceptions of unity and physical manifestations of unity?

>>2092225
No, it would be like a twin. Because clones don't inherit memories. They don't even look identical due to environmental condition.

>>2092119
He is completely ignoring the fact that perception is dependent on information transmitted by signs that exist outside of the mind.
It's evolutionary impossible for a mind to be 'self learning'
Language must be learned
How can bee drones go back to the hive and tell other bees where the dank pollen is?
How can plants track the sun if they cannot think?
Perception and consciousness are qualities innate to all life as all life must be able to perceive and react accordingly to the perceived information in order to live in a changing environment/ regulate internal system dynamics in order to stay alive and in order to reproduce. Symbolic self conscious thought is just one variety of semiosis and couldn't come to exist on its own.

>>2092376
We are looking for a physical substratum to consciousness. Neurons firing are just neurons firing. In a grand orchestrated synchronous event or not, they are just neurons firing. How would discrete and separated events be capable of producing a unified experience of consciousness?

It needs a field-like entity to be plausible.

How is this a problem to begin with? What induces us to think that the things we know to produce consciousness "shouldn't"?

>>2092441
>We are looking for a physical substratum to consciousness.

The brain.

>Neurons firing are just neurons firing.

HURR

>How would discrete and separated events be capable of producing a unified experience of consciousness?

You literally just answered your own "question" you spastic.
>grand orchestrated synchronous

onsciousness, according to Dennett’s theory, is like a conjuring trick: the normal functioning of the brain just makes it look as if there is something non-physical going on. To look for a real, substantive thing called consciousness, Dennett argues, is as silly as insisting that characters in novels, such as Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter, must be made up of a peculiar substance named “fictoplasm”; the idea is absurd and unnecessary, since the characters do not exist to begin with. This is the point at which the debate tends to collapse into incredulous laughter and head-shaking: neither camp can quite believe what the other is saying.

>>2092458
You have a poor understanding of the physical implications of consciousness.

That is not a suitable embodiment of consciousness.

>>2092441
Stop using reductionism
It's the interactions between neurons working to produce something greater not the neurons themselves.
Like how binary code works

>>2092472
>That is not a suitable embodiment of consciousness.

Says who? You? You're wrong. Now what?

brute identity—of electricity and magnetism into one force, say—occur at the foundational level of physics. Neurological and phenomenal properties do not seem to be basic in this way. We are left with phenomenal properties inexplicable in physical terms, “brutally” identified with neurological properties in a way that nothing else seems to be. Why not take all this as an indication that phenomenal properties are not physical after all?

>>2092441
>In a grand orchestrated synchronous event or not, they are just neurons firing
Just about every chemical reaction can be reduced to the effects of electron movement. You could say that just about all of chemistry, and everything that entails, is "just" electrons migrating, but that doesn't actually tell you the whole story. In a sense, yes, conciousness is "just" neurons firing, but the magnitude of what that actually entails is huge.

>>2092474
Consciousness is a unified experience. It requires a physical unity which is actually that. Physically connected.

Matter flying through space to produce a ghost of the machine. How deep is your understanding...

>>2092473
Reductionism is relevant when concerned with the physics of consciousness.

>>2092489
>Consciousness is a unified experience.

No, it isn't.

>It requires a physical unity which is actually that. Physically connected.

Like the brain?

>>2092492
But not the mechanism itself, knowing what the part is is completly necessary but parts can't tell you how the system works by themselves.

>>2092453

>What induces us to think that the things we know to produce consciousness "shouldn't"?

People overrating the literal reality of what their brain signals to itself. Behaving as though you're seeing 'red' is a useful trick for getting you to speak and act in terms of an abstract fiction in a way that's a lot more simple and efficient than if we were all forced to deal with the literal reality of speaking and acting in terms of all the little stimuli input and reactions we have. It hides the messiness of our behavioral routines from ourselves by getting us to operate in terms of big, dumb, perfectly immediate and physically inexplicable 'qualia'. The problem comes in when people take these big, dumb, perfectly immediate, and physically inexplicable 'qualia' at face value and start trying to explain them as though they were physical phenomena in themselves, like they somehow need a new physics to account for them. In reality, they're so immediate seeming and eluding of explanation exactly because they aren't actual things at all. They're only as real as the concepts of numbers or monetary value are. We can get a lot of mileage out of behaving *as though* these things were real, but that presumptive behavior is the only real thing in the equation.

>>2092494

No, physically connected like an electromagnetic field. So that information would be conferred in it's entirety.

I know you desperately want to be right, but it would be nice if you could come to terms with understanding informational processing a little better.

>>2092510
What the fuck are you going on about?

>>2092513
>No, physically connected like an electromagnetic field. So that information would be conferred in it's entirety.

Why do you imagine this is required? Also, you DO realise that the brain does have an electromagnetic field?

>>2092516

Maybe try asking about something specific you're failing to understand.

>>2092519
Why do you imagine that it isn't?

How do you think information in the universe travels?

>>2092529
>How do you think information in the universe travels?

Mostly thru photons. Also, THE BRAIN HAS AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD. Your own objection is nonsense, as you;d know if you knew anything.

>>2092525
I don't quite see how this stuff about qualia relates to my question.
Or perhaps I do; and in that case: why do the qualia need to be explained?

>>2092537
I've already explained why I believe it is not the electromagnetic field.

>>2092529
In the brain, information is communicated through the moment of ions through channels that are selectively activated and deactivated in a giant self-regulating system. Why is this not enough to communicate the information required for awareness?

>>2092549

Because it would completely destroy your position? Tough shit retard, you don;t get to ignore facts when they're inconvenient.

For those that claim there is no hard or binding problem to consciousness, then why are neuroscientists working on quantum brain models?

>>2092562
Why wouldn't they? Quantum physics is physics. Models and understanding should be updated in order to take advantage of current knowledge. It's just that the specific thing known as "the hard problem of conciousness" is not a coherent question.

>>2092541

>why do the qualia need to be explained?

It's less that they need to be explained and more that a lot of people mistakenly believe they need to be explained. Because they're literally mind tricks that get us to believe we're 'experiencing' sights or sounds as things in themselves. So people who get worked up about the 'hard problem' and trying to solve it by coming up with a new physics that accounts for 'consciousness' do so because they're taking the mind tricks at face value. They're believing that because they're compelled to behave as though these sights and sounds are actual things, that this means they really are actual things.

>>2090642
>Consciousness is also a streaming event
[citation needed]
>Consciousness is not only a unity but a substantial unity
no it isn't.
>>2090647
>However, there is also the phenomena of the electromagnetic field which hypothetically could connect all of these events with a unified force, therefore solving the "binding problem". However, we run into a similar problem because the electromagnetic field is quantized as discrete entities, electromagnetic waves.
this is just gibberish, like the people who hand-wave 'quantum particles' to account for free will
>>2090653
except for when you're reading something new, or when you forget something
>>2090659
>misuse of occam's razor
ho boy

TL;DR:
>guy without free will tries desperately to prove he has it

>>2092572
What do you define as an "actual thing"?

consciousness exists as much as god

am i smart yet lads :^)

>>2091947
this
>>2091996
nice one, retard

>>2092586

>What do you define as an "actual thing"?

The physical world is real / actual. There is light and sound. What there isn't is the 'experience of red' or the 'experience of noise'. Those things are abstract fictions we behave in terms of, not actual phenomena in need of explanation in the same way the physical world is explained. They're more like numbers or monetary value. You will never solve the 'hard problem' of finding the number five in the fingers of your hand for example because the fiveness of your fingers isn't an actual thing in the real world, it's an abstract fiction that's useful to behave around.

>>2092553

There is information traveling from the neurons, but they are not traveling in a coherent medium.

Also, neurons fire in separate parts of the brain which are mysteriously organized as a single perception.

>>2092597
>What there isn't is the 'experience of red' or the 'experience of noise'
The experience of red/noise is in a specific pattern of neurons firing. It's just as physical as anything else.

>>2092597
So by "actual thing" you merely mean material object?

>>2092604
>There is information traveling from the neurons, but they are not traveling in a coherent medium.
Why is the neural network with associated gilial cells not a coherent medium?
>Also, neurons fire in separate parts of the brain which are mysteriously organized as a single perception.
It's not mysterious. Signals are transmitted to the frontal lobe and into working memory for "you" (the self-report) to perceive them, but actual signal detection, computation and certain types of desicion making occur in separate parts of the brain before this report occurs. That's why a decision "you" perceive as "you" making can be detected by a machine before "you" make the desicion, as the signal for it can be detected before it is fully transmitted to the frontal lobe.

>>2092619

Not that faggot but prove there are such things as non-material objects.

>>2092632
I never suggested that there were.
But I don't have any opinion. It all depends on what definitions one uses.
This is the case with almost all philosophy. Different words are used to describe the same things.

>>2092645
>I never suggested that there were.

Then why pretend to be retarded? Kys you waste of skin.

>>2092625
It is not a cohesive whole, it is broken apart and not physically unified. It doesn't make sense that the physics of separate disjointed things, produces the physics of a substantial unity.

>>
Different parts of the brain light up, and we perceive it as a whole experience. The neurons are not communicating the experience in an encoded form to the frontal lobe for example.

>>2092662

We experience consciousness as a single "thing", but this is because doing so is advantageous to our survival. Consciousness is NOT a unified "thing", it's a vast parallel process drawing upon countless autonomous subconcious processes, we merely perceive it as unified.

>>2092674
Agree to disagree.

>>2092679

I agree that youre a moron, how about that?

>>2092684
Baseless assumption.

Your theory goes against my (our) observation and common sense.

>>2092662
>It doesn't make sense that the physics of separate disjointed things, produces the physics of a substantial unity.
We have a well understood mechanism for the transmission of signals through action potentials and neurotransmitters. There is no compelling reason why awareness must be the result of a "substantive" unity and not a practical one.

>Different parts of the brain light up, and we perceive it as a whole experience. The neurons are not communicating the experience in an encoded form to the frontal lobe for example.
That is exactly what happens, actually. "Your" perception of experience as a singular whole occurs long after computation in the separate parts of the brain have occurred, and "you" perceive it as "you" personally making the descions.

>>2092702
There is a compelling reason. Try to imagine it visually.
Physical structure of seperate things =/= physically unified structure

Hmm... maybe in your specific example that is how it works, but what about looking at the redness of an apple?

>>2092734
>There is a compelling reason. Try to imagine it visually.
Okay. The diffusion of neurotransmitters across the synaptic occurs when the vesicles containing them merge with the edge of the neuron that was previously experiencing the AP. Depending on the balance of molecules within the cleft promoting the channels on the opposite end to open or remain shut, the signal may or may not be transmitted. It depends on a variety of factors and what computations are occurring. Simplified, sure, but I fail to see the impossibility here.

>but what about looking at the redness of an apple?
Yes. There is processing that occurs in the eyes themselves, the visual cortex etc before it is transmitted to the frontal lobe for concious awareness. If the tract that conveys the 'redness' to the frontal lobe is damaged, you can get into situations where the brain can see and act upon something the "I"/"you" cannot, which would not be possible otherwise.

>>2092785
Okay, now try to imagine consciousness as a substantial unity. Those processes lack [i]physical[/i] unification

Hmm... so you could stimulate parts of the frontal lobe and see a red apple without stimulating the visual cortex?

>>2092854
>Okay, now try to imagine consciousness as a substantial unity.
I can imagine it, but I am not sure what precisely substantial unity actually means, nor why conciousness would be forced to be one.

>Hmm... so you could stimulate parts of the frontal lobe and see a red apple without stimulating the visual cortex?
To achieve this, you would likely need to figure out the exact set of inputs to the frontal lobe that result in the subjective experience of "red apple" and simulate every single one of those signals, without stimulating the actual cortexes that would normally contribute to it. For example, it's not as simple as just the visual cortex presenting the image, it also connects to the lexicon and other parts of the brain that define what an "apple" is etc. So the boring answer here is a firm "maybe?".

>>2092854
>Okay, now try to imagine consciousness as a substantial unity.

It isn't tho. This isn't up for debate, literally no-one working in neuroscience would accept for a second that consciousness is unitary.

>>2090642

I won't even read this. There's no hard problem, we aren't actually conscious but pseudo-conscious. Consciousness seems to be physically impossible and even outright absurd as a concept.

>>2092898
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-unity/

But google tho. :-o

>>2092878
It is substantial, meaning it is of substance, like matter or space. It has some physical existence.
Unity means a single unit.
A physically unified thing.

>
Well, is the information encoded from other parts of the brain into the frontal lobe or not? Is there simultaneous firing in different parts of the brain that produce that perception?

>>2092938
But matter can't be unified under your system, because of the huge separations between individual "pieces." The relative separation of a nucleus and an electron dwarfs the relative separation of the synaptic cleft.

>Well, is the information encoded from other parts of the brain into the frontal lobe or not? Is there simultaneous firing in different parts of the brain that produce that perception?
Not simultaneous, antecedent. Perception occurs with the sensory organs and the parts of the brain that "listen" for them and process the signals. When that is accomplished, they convey a more finished signal to the frontal lobe that produces a cognitive awareness of the perception, not the perception itself. An example of the difference between perception and the conscious awareness of perception is blindsight, where the brain of the patient can perceive obstacles and the body shifts to avoid them, but the "I"/self-report in the frontal lobe is not aware of the signal and the patient reports blindness. They are perceiving, but cannot perceive that they are perceiving.

>>2092973
Well I mean you could use the electromagnetic field to connect everything. Under a classical interpretation at least it is plausible.

>

Ah, we are speaking of perception differently. When I say perception I only meant mental events that one is aware of. I suppose it is useful to expand the definition, and specify what I meant as cognizant perception. Blindsight is interesting I will have to look into it.
Anyway, I guess then, there are synchronous firing of neurons in the same part of the brain that are integrated into a whole experience.

>The hard problem of consciousness is that we don't have a physical explanation for the subjective phenomena of consciousness.
Right off the bat, even your wording of the problem fails to set it up as a problem. We actually have perfectly good physical explanations for consciousness, there's just no way to know they're actually true. Consciousness is probably an emergent property of information processing that involves memory and some level of unification, i.e. in the way there's a spot on the brain where a lot of different processed information - sensory input and some subconscious processes - go.

>From a reductionist standpoint, the brain is separated into neurons, and when you examine a single neuron you find no trace of consciousness.
Sorites paradox is fun as a semantic game, but really there's no reason to assume emergent properties can't exist. One water molecule isn't "wet" in any sense of the word, and yet get enough of it together and you'll be able to describe it as such. Keeping with water, fluid dynamics emerge once you have enough of it, yet with a few molecules you couldn't properly describe any of its behaviours using fluid dynamics.

>>2093029
>Well I mean you could use the electromagnetic field to connect everything. Under a classical interpretation at least it is plausible.
Well for one thing, we know for sure that a classical interpretation is incomplete. For another, there's still no reason to assume awareness must be anything like that, when we can see very plainly a mechanism that accounts for communication and information transmission otherwise.

>Anyway, I guess then, there are synchronous firing of neurons in the same part of the brain that are integrated into a whole experience.
Once the processed signals have worked their way from the disparate parts of the brain to the frontal lobe, they all become available to working memory, but even that is more complicated than it seems. There is top down control where the consciousness controls what signals it pays attention to, and bottom up control where signals intrude onto whatever else the consciousness was doing. For example, we've all experienced a time when we were doing something, and then some injury occurred and all we could focus on was the pain. But other times people have been in serious accidents but they didn't even feel the pain until they were informed by an outside source or a mirror that they were injured, and then it suddenly came in a wave. The illusion of consciousness is that it is a unified, automatic thing, but it is exactly that, an illusion. Studying how it breaks down informs us of just how mistaken that subjective understanding is, and that it is really an incredibly messy machine with a lot of moving parts.

>>2093208
Perfectly good explanations? There are many explanations that are equally powerful? Then one does not stand out as a strong explanatory model. They merely rely on the correlation between brain and consciousness
>
I don't deny emergent properties exist, I think consciousness as an emergent property is unlikely due to the binding problem.

>>2093308
Thats what I said.
In my mind, with the brain as a power source for the soul, it is a perfect analogy for the soul. It has one to one relationships with mental events. But it can not describe awareness. Awareness has substance (you believe you are the same exact awareness that woke up this morning as well as went to sleep last night, don't you?) and is a singular entity (I think you are trying to disagree here, but I feel there is a singular processor of events), it is not broken up into moments of awareness but is a constant backdrop for perceptions.

You seem to have a comprehensive understanding of neuroscience, how have you studied in college?

>>2092188
>Im a libertarian so I believe in free will
>Nothing to be scared of
How can one be so delusional? Christ on a cracker.

>>2092541
>I do; and
Stop using semi-colons if you don't know how to use them, please.

>>2093485
>(you believe you are the same exact awareness that woke up this morning as well as went to sleep last night, don't you?)
>and is a singular entity (I think you are trying to disagree here, but I feel there is a singular processor of events)
It depends on where you draw the line on an entity. If you say "you" is your entire brain, then yes, it is one entity with a lot of moving parts. If you say "you" is the voice in your head that has thoughts and appears to make decisions, then it is a convenient illusion that covers up a much messier reality. It's incredibly convincing, until it breaks down and you see how the sausage is made.

Think about testing your blind spot. You are so used to trusting your eyes, that the idea that parts of your eyes are blind is completely ridiculous and contrary to common sense. If you had a blind spot in your eyes, you'd certainly know, because you wouldn't be able to see there, right? And since you can see everywhere, clearly you lack a blindspot. But when you actually do the test, it is slightly disturbing the first time realizing that your eyes and brain are fooling "you." The continuity of consciousness and awareness, that is clearly and obviously true subjectively to anyone with a working brain, is a similar illusion. Your brain is lying to "you", which is why introspection is such a misleading way to study how the brain actually works.

>You seem to have a comprehensive understanding of neuroscience, how have you studied in college?
Nowhere near comprehensive, I knew only what I had to and transitioned out of it. If someone has more current information and wants to correct me on anything , please do, because I am likely at least a bit out of date.

>>2093614
Thanks for posting friend, your posts have really got my noggin a joggin.

>>2094605
Not intended to be sarcasm btw.

http://www.richannel.org/alok-jha-consciousness-the-hard-problem--discussion

>>2093614
>blindspot
The brain doesn't fool you but simply doesn't have the capacity to fully process all information hence makes assumptions. It is not so much as deception than as imperfection hence introspection is flawed but not false.

>>2095069
Shit I thought you meant optical illusions. But for the blindspot, the brain doesn't know it has a blindspot too and makes up for the gap (similar to how it regularly view stuff and optical illusions). It is more that the brain is assuming for it and you and just "lying to you" as that impiled the brain knows what is in blind spot and is showing you something else.

why is /sci/ always so butthurt and prone to rage?
lack of pussy?

Another expression of the Hard Problem is what Joseph Levine called "the explanatory gap." The referred-to gap is the gap between our physical (in this case, our neuroscientific) explanations of events (such as a chain of neurons fired and eventually an arm moved) and the phenomenological or mental explanation of the same event (I felt like moving my arm). No living neuroscientist could ever explain to you why this giant set of neurons spiking in a particular way felt a particular way, and if they claimed to be able to they would be lying. They prejudiciously assume there is some explanation within our current conceptual neuroscientific structure but in fact, no matter how much they knew about the neurons and their spiking, they could never tell you. So it is entirely true that our conceptual/theoretic tools in neuroscience, as they stand now, are not able to derive consciousness from neural activity, and in fact not even able to relate consciousness to neural activity. Does this mean that there is no in principle way of relating the two? Yes, without new conceptual/theoretic tools.