Today I encountered the "Hard Problem" of consciousness.

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Consciousness arose at some point
>nothing to do with evolution

>>853414
>time travelling sentient amoebas from the nth dimension
well if you're going to be like that i guess no enlightenment for you

>>853423
Well duh.
Great strides youve taken there. As I said in the OP evolution and physics are considered to be true and definetly have a hand in consciousness. The question is why do you experience "blue"? Why is subjective experience a thing that occurs? Why does the inner life behind your eyes happen?
This isnt a new age apologetics. Its an earnest quesion. Im a staunch naturalist and firmly believe there is a good explanation for it in science.

There is always going to be an inexplicable element of reality that binds us all. I always use flocks of birds or schools of fish as examples, but evidence that we are all interconnected not only within our species but to other species goes back far in time. We have used the flight patterns of birds to predict the future for centuries. What if our creator is real and what if he is kind enough to show us signs in reality?

This would necessitate a collective conscious because all beings must feel the path they must travel. A fish does not analytically decide where it should move second by second nor does it act as a robot. Many would say to analyze other creatures by the standards of perception we give ourselves is asanine. Their perceptions are much different. They feel their life paths as much as we should feel ours. It should not be determined for us by any set 'laws' of the universe.

>>853452
>The question is why do you experience "blue"? Why is subjective experience a thing that occurs?

How does colour-blindness exists?

>>853452
>>853458
Well so much for not tackling consciousness from a theological standpoint. Four posts in and we already have a creationist and Darwinist

>>853458
>I always use flocks of birds or schools of fish as examples


These are understandable in term of self preservation. see evolutionary game theory.

>>853467
I'd doubt that we have either.

t.supposed darwinist

I'll leave if you want to go into theology though.

>>853470
And that flock behavior, while it rewards itself in a way of supplying food for predators, this is just one example of why, not the entire picture. You are taking one piece out of Gods puzzle and calling it the entire picture

>>853478
I would argue youre taking one piece out of the evolutionary picture and calling it God.
Theologians have a tendency to do that.
I doubt theres a direct physical causal mechanism. There isnt a counsciousness muscle. But I do think that complex physical systems produce what we call the self and give rise to our subjective experiences. Just saying "God dunnit" should leave you feeling dissatisfied.

>The logical conclusion that our subjective experience of sensation cannot be explained by the simple properties of matter. As Sir Isaac Newton put it
It's not a conclusion. It's a problem, and one we're well on our way to figuring out on a neuroscientific level.

>>853583
As far as I know, neuroscience has made no progress on the issue of qualia.

>>853583
>>853583
As an exercise in logic its sound. You could make a sylogism of it. Matter with specific laws of motion cant explain qualia or the subjective experience. Theres no unit of matter with physical laws that can be attributed to the experience. I agree we are currently making huge strids in our understanding, and will eventually completely explain, consciousness. But if it is explainable, it will certianly be a result of physical causes and systems.

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>>853844
>>853858
>>853972
>qualia
>subjectivity
Subjectivity is objective.

>it's a qualia exists and theology thread

So much for this thread. Why do people make shit up and look really hard for it? Why do people trick themselves so hard?

>>854033
Then explain qualia scientifically. I'm waiting.

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>>854074
Why explain something that doesn't exist?

Unless you mean, how do we see things. Here you go pal, a few wikipedia pages:

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

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

You may as well ask how a camera and computer work. There's no need to shove in a magical effect to what you perceive.

If your response is going to be that our model of the world is somehow impossible otherwise, then I guess I've failed.

https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky/minsky_p4.html

This link is a good way to describe my opinions.

>>854101
Subjective experience does happen and requires a scientific explanation. Your links do not explain it. You didn't even understand the question.

>>854146
The subtle changes to your brain are the subjective experience. But I guess nothing else I can say will help. Have fun looking for magic.

>>854160
Can you prove that? How do "subtle changes" in my brain cause subjective experience?

>>854033
Perhaps because they don't want consciousness to simply be a property of the brain and its parts. Because it is easier to validate your life and your choices that way, perhaps. I don't know.

>>854177
I would love to see consciousness physically explained, but I've never seen an explanation for qualia.

>>853414
Naturalism is a failed worldview.

>>854164
The differences in neural connections, memory formation, and chemical make-up give rise to subtle differences in experience of stimuli from person to person, this is where we get subjectivity from, it's a consequence of no two brains being alike.

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>>854177
>>854033
>waaah people have different opinions!

>>854193
I agree, but by what mechanism does our individual subjective experience arise? Why do we have it at all?

>>854186
What is there to explain about qualia? I don'T understand what you ask when you want an explanation for qualia. Different brains are shaped differently, like any organs. DNA copying isn't perfect, organisms are different.

>>854193
That's not an explanation bro, very few people deny that physical brain states correlate with or even cause the "structure" of qualia- they just have no idea how consciousness manifests out of matter.

So then we ask, well is everything conscious in its own way? Does consciousness arise at a certain level of complexity? Is there no adequate materialist explanation?

Just saying "brain state = consciousness" misses the point entirely

>>854164
I don't believe in god despite no hard evidence to either side.

It might sound like a cop out to you to say that I don't have any, but I dislike your brand of making shit up and saying it's right.

You can hook up people and do brain scans when people experience things and notice changes in relevant areas of the brain, and I'll admit that there's no proof that it really is that subjective experience, even if we know that brains are all different and we can find out all sorts of things, seeing a phenomenon and saying you know the cause are two different things. Hopefully even you can admit to that.

Your explanation has no backing at all, though, so I choose to reject it. But faith is a funny thing, since even I have some in certain things.

I just find it much more likely that changes in hardware are much like flipping bits in a computer, given that the model is practical and you're on a machine that demonstrates that property. I see your qualia the same way I would feel if you looked at a computer and said that a computer feels a subjective experience that can't be explained by science.

Do you believe that humans are more than advanced machines? I don't, but you might. That's the crux of the argument, and I only hope that you can see my side to be at least as valid as yours.

>>854213
This is an accurate argument for why different people might have different qualia, but it doesn't tell us a mechanism of how qualia arise in the first place.

>>854225
>seeing a phenomenon and saying you know the cause are two different things. Hopefully even you can admit to that.
That was exactly my criticism of your position.

>Your explanation has no backing at all
I did not propose any explanation. I merely stated that I'd like to see an explanation for subjective experience.

Look dude, we're on the same boat. Our every day experience shows that there is a subjective quality of consciousness which is not yet fully explicable in terms of a physical mechanism. I'm only looking for possible explanations. I'm not proposing dualism, let alone magic. On the contrary I'd be much happier with a scientific approach.

>>854232
Neuronal activity is qualia, isn't it? The neurological explanation of brain activity explains the origin of qualia quite enough imo. Your brain is a supersystem of billions of microsystem that interact with their immediate neighbors, and the ends of that supersystem are linked to the external nervous system.

When you imagine a red cube in your mind, for example, billions of neurons are involved in that task. When you sleep, there is a lessened activity in some areas, and a higher activity in others, but in the end you wake up with that hole your perception of what went on, because the parts of your brain that usually help in registering and examining what goes on around you weren't active.

>it doesn't tell us a mechanism of how qualia arise in the first place.
I don't know what kind of mechanism you seek to hear about, but neurology in general could probably answer many of your questions.

>>854074

To explain it scientifically would require a Hypothesis.

Assuming you want a materialistic explanation instead I'll just relay my thoughts on the matter which are largely derived from shitty sources like wikipedia.

You have a conscious mind. This conscious mind is derived from neuronal activity in your brain.
The conscious mind is fed filtered information by unconscious parts of your brain that have access to the input from your sensory organs.
The exact composition and behavior of the brain then determines the "Qualia".
The raw input is mangled until it appears "Normal" and comprehendable(Though this doesn't always work).
>If you are wearing glasses that reverse your vision then eventually you will see the world as right side up while wearing those glasses
>If an object of known color is placed in your non-color vision then that object is colored in correctly
Damage and change to the brain can be somewhat linked to changes in Qualia such as blindsight where conscious perception of color is hindered due to brain damage but there is still the possibility of subconscious recognition (I think that's accurate).

>>854209
By virtue of the fact that it's impossible for any two organisms to experience events in the exact same way. As an example: You and your Clone are both looking at a flower on a table. This Clone up until this moment is that exact same as you in all ways possible, down to neural connections. Since the two of you can not occupy the same exact space, your perspective on the flower are separate. From this every thing about how you and this clone experience the stimuli of viewing this flowing is completely changed, from the subtle differences in lighting to the subtle differences in the air in your immediate vicinity, this leads to a cascade of events that result in your minds recording the same stimuli in different ways, because ultimately, the idea of experiencing the exact same stimuli is a fabrication in itself. Since no two organisms can experience the exact same stimuli in the exact same place, at the exact same time, with the exact same matter, and the exact same mind and biological makeup, it leads to all organisms experiencing, essentially, their own universe of stimuli. This is what gives rise to individuality and the idea of the self. This is also why ultimately why you can never be sure of the existence of others, as your stimuli are the only ones you experience, and no one else can experience them, nor can you experience anyone else's, so you can never be 100% sure their stimuli actually exists.

>>854214
I find consciousness to be a concept rather than an actual thing. The things you may describe as part of consciousness are properties that exist. It's quite muddy, especially when you consider that awareness is relative. Could you draw a line between "aware" and "not aware" for a computer with a good AI? Or is it simply "I'll know it when I see it"?

If your answer is that living things really do have an inherent property that can't be explained much like the flipping of bits, I'd like to hear something more substantial than something like qualia.

>>854242
>Our everyday experience shows that there is a subjective quality of consciousness which is not yet fully explicable in terms of a physical mechanism

See above.

Hop on the physicalism train like I did, then. Or learn some coding and AI.

>>854244
>Neuronal activity is qualia, isn't it?
That's they hypothesis we'd like to work with, but as of now there is no way to test it. We don't know yet how neuronal activity causes qualia, let alone which neuronal activity causes which qualia. Sadly we don't even have enough evidence to confirm that this causation holds at all. Of course my faith in science is strong enough to not resort to completely magically dualism, but some form of (no-religious) dualism can philosophically never be excluded.

>>854245
Of course everything you said is right, but nonetheless it is somehow lacking explanatory depth. It's like saying "gravity is things falling down" while at the same time research physicists are concerned about explaining it with "gravitons" and reconciling it with QFT.

>>854270
I agree, but I think that as neurology goes on, the likeliness of dualism is getting lower and lower. The advocates of dualism will never be convinced, because if neurology ever has enough evidence to disprove dualism (imo the odds of non-dualism are already higher than 99%), it will either be too complicated for non-neurologists to understand it fully, or they will still grasp to a possibility of dualism.

The thing is, the neurological materialistic explanation doesn't need to speculative base, while every dualistic explanation does, all their theories need to assume at some point that magical force inhabiting the brain, but that force has yet to be empirically seen. Everything the materialistic claims need can already be seen and evaluated.

>>854246
Entirely correct, but you subtly missed the point. What you explain is the existence of subjectivity. That doesn't explain the existence of subjective conscious experience though, but rather already assumes it.

>>854255
>Or learn some coding and AI.
I'm quite familiar with coding and I know a little bit about machine learning.

What would you consider "more substantial" than qualia? Isn't the "problem of other minds" enough of a philosophical issue? I would just feel uncomfortable with simply ignoring or denying it.

>>854292
So basically Occam's razor?

>>854298
I think the argument here is which comes from which. Does subjective conscious experience exist because subjectivity exists or is our ability to observe subjectivity due to our consciousness and sense of self. I don't have a solid provable answer either way, but I'm of the opinion that the self is a result of our singular experience of reality and our minds organizing of stimuli.

>>854311
Unless the dualistic theory has an empirical base, yes, occam's razor will always point to the materialistic point of view, and that point of view is made stronger with every neurological discovery.

>>854307
Let me rephrase that, I might have said it wrong. I don't see a gap in my explanation, but you see my explanation as inadequate, due to saying it is necessary to explain a property that I don't think exists as you think it does, called qualia. "Prove" that we're not just advanced computers that aren't directly connected to each other.

Also give a better definition of consciousness so neither of us can handwave it away as qualia or brains slipping bits.

>>854255
>Could you draw a line between "aware" and "not aware" for a computer with a good AI? Or is it simply "I'll know it when I see it"?

I can't draw that line, and I'm not sure you would know it if you saw it. Consciousness is one of the biggest mysteries of existence, you're not going to get an answer on a mongolian folk dancing board.

My only point to make is that consciousness manifests as something wholly different from matter, even if it correlates with that matter. Imagine there's a person that only appears to be conscious but really is an automaton with no conscious. Now imagine that same person with a consciousness. Nothing material has changed changed to the best of our scientific knowledge- yet something is vastly different: one is conscious and the other isn't.

Just pointing out the correlation between brain states and consciousness doesn't explain why consciousness is there, and just seems ridiculously reductionist to me. Materialists are so hell bent on their scientific world view that they won't even allow for legitimate metaphysical questions

>>854342
Consciousness is automation, but our brain is so vast, when it comes to the number of neurons involved, and unefficiently built (as opposed to a future computer that could do the same things as we do) that it appears as something more complex than mere material and chemical reaction.

I don't think we are in control of our thoughts, if I decide right now to imagine a pink bird in my mind, that decision will have been influenced by an unnumerable amounts of factors and sub-states in my brains, and most of them are unknown to my conscious attention. I could have written yellow elephant earlier when I wrote "pink bird", but somehow I didn't (although I do now, and right now I'm not writing about a third colored animal), and billions of microdecisions, processed through the stimulation of certain neurons and the non-stimulation of others, influenced that macrodecision of writing pink bird or yellow elephant in my post.

The brain is like a bush, if you kick the bush on a side, there might have unexpected movements of leaves on the other side of the bush. A stimulation in the brain is involving many neurons that are unnecessary to the task at hand (that is what I meant when I called the brain inefficient).

I don't see why it wouldn't work like that, every other explanation calls to an unnecessary speculation to me, and until such an explanation is supported empirically, I don't see why it should be given more credibility than the purely materialistic explanation.

>>854342
>consciousness manifests as something wholly different than matter
Sorry, I can't see it as something other than a state represented by flipping bits or an equivalent.

Also, I don't believe in philosophical zombies being a useful explanation. If it does everything a person should then it is that thing. You are making up things again.

>>854371
That's an appeal to design, or complexity. The second thing you mention is simply a different heuristic for decision making. If anyone figures out the details of quick human decision making, it's just another heuristic.

>>854377
>appeal to design
How so? I mean, sure, the human brain was "designed" in a way through natural selection, but what do you mean?

>>854371
This

>>854381
Your explanation is that it's complicated, so it must be special, or that what we can't yet see must be unfathomable. I can't accept something like that.

>>854435
It's complex, quantitatively speaking, but I'm not sure it's complicated. The existence of a soul or some non-physical entity in the skull sounds way more special and unfathomable. I don't know enough about evolution and biology to know when the first nervous systems appeared, but it's probably along with the first multi-cellular organisms. Even singular cells have a way to react to their environment. The human brain/consciousness is an exponential expression of these simple nervous mechanisms that allow living beings to perceive and interact with their environment or their own bodies.

>>853414
That it isn't easy to understand, or that conventional language isn't well equipped to describe it, doesn't really say very much about the thing itself. What exactly is the problem, as you understand it?

>>854462
I think the first multicellular organisms (like sponges) only had a division between cells doing work and cells reproducing.
Nervous systems don't arise until later.

>>854146
>Subjective experience does happen and requires a scientific explanation.


Er, and it has such an explanation. The laws of physics and biology explain why we do not perceive the world directly, but only thru a series of reconstructions. I suspect that what you really mean is that language is insufficient to fully convey meaning, which is true but not a huge problem since we do not rely on language alone to understand the universe.

>>854164
>prove

This is where you people always go wrong. Science does not deal in proofs, only mathematics and logic do. There are no proofs in nature, only facts that have been observed and models that seek to explain the observed facts.

So no, no-one can "prove" such a thing. I can demonstrate a great many examples of facts that support a materialist explanation for consciousness, and you can choose to accept the evidence or refute the model proposed by said evidence.

>>854209
>I agree, but by what mechanism does our individual subjective experience arise?

Natural selection.

>Why do we have it at all?

Because it gives us an evolutionary advantage, and was therefore selected.

>>854298
>That doesn't explain the existence of subjective conscious experience though, but rather already assumes it.

Einstein explained this in his theories of relativity. An event that occurs at point A does not instantly become known everywhere else in the Universe at once, all events are locked into their own frames of reference and therefore subjectivity is the rule despite the (presumed) existence of an objective universe.

>>854342
>Imagine there's a person that only appears to be conscious but really is an automaton with no conscious. Now imagine that same person with a consciousness. Nothing material has changed changed to the best of our scientific knowledge- yet something is vastly different: one is conscious and the other isn't.

No, this is nonsense. Just because a difference exists in our language between "existing" and "being conscious" doesn't mean there is an actual difference in reality.

>why consciousness is there

Why are your thumbs there?

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>>853531
>I would argue youre taking one piece out of the evolutionary picture and calling it God.
Absolutely, As Evolution simply has no evidence, change happens sure, until you can demonstrate with a predictive model without retro-actively looking at things then Evolution remains just a theory, no not a scientific theory, just a philosophical one, no amount of semantics will change the irrationality of Evolution.
Either demonstrate the mechanism or reasonable evidence for the mechanism (evidence for the mechanism not change, for instance the fossil record, molecular bio, etc, is not evidence of mechanism merely change) then you must accept that Evolution as in the theory has no evidence (as for the theory it demands mechanism that's the purpose of a scientific theory) and that it is merely a hypothesis.

t. "I've looked and looked, studied and studied, Science isn't a PBS special, its nerds looking for money so they can do nerd things"

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>>855778
t. YEC

>>853414
Consciousness is either real or illusory.

If illusory, there is no problem as there is no phenomena.

If real, endless self reference of the type described by newton cannot be 'jumped in front of' the previous level of the meta analysis will be the best you have.

Light ->perception of light->perception of perception of light

However I can assure you after the termination of this process, we can determine every path that was taken, and which paths were open from there without the consciousness of the person being examined.

Should you wish to confer consciousness on the devices inspecting the dead brain, we may still have a problem, else there is no problem.

>>855778
>change happens sure
What the fuck do you think evolution is?

>Let's get back to those suitcase-words (like intuition or consciousness) that all of us use to encapsulate our jumbled ideas about our minds. We use those words as suitcases in which to contain all sorts of mysteries that we can't yet explain. This in turn leads us to regard these as though they were "things" with no structures to analyze. I think this is what leads so many of us to the dogma of dualism-the idea that 'subjective' matters lie in a realm that experimental science can never reach. Many philosophers, even today, hold the strange idea that there could be a machine that works and behaves just like a brain, yet does not experience consciousness. If that were the case, then this would imply that subjective feelings do not result from the processes that occur inside brains. Therefore (so the argument goes) a feeling must be a nonphysical thing that has no causes or consequences. Surely, no such thing could ever be explained!
>The first thing wrong with this "argument" is that it starts by assuming what it's trying to prove. Could there actually exist a machine that is physically just like a person, but has none of that person's feelings? "Surely so," some philosophers say. "Given that feelings cannot not be physically detected, then it is 'logically possible' that some people have none." I regret to say that almost every student confronted with this can find no good reason to dissent. "Yes," they agree. "Obviously that is logically possible. Although it seems implausible, there's no way that it could be disproved."

>>855871
>
The next thing wrong is the unsupported assumption that this is even "logically possible." To be sure of that, you'd need to have proved that no sound materialistic theory could correctly explain how a brain could produce the processes that we call "subjective experience." But again, that's just what we were trying to prove. What do those philosophers say when confronted by this argument? They usually answer with statements like this: "I just can't imagine how any theory could do that." That fallacy deserves a name-something like "incompetentium".

Mysticists BTFO by Based Minsky
https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky/minsky_p2.html

>>855847
Bullshit.

>>855878
But you just said that it happens, if it happens how can it be bullshit?

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I hate to sound like a Dennett fag, but I'm gonna guess the reason we have such a problem understanding consciousness is because much of our consciousness experience is built out of tricks and so much of our mind is hidden from us, that is, our conscious.

Our subconscious is always thinking things without "our" awareness of it. We know that there are more than one personalities hidden within a person, each with their own thoughts, beliefs, and desires. A good chunk of the visual information we receive is just our brain filling in gaps for efficiency. Even worse, we actively trick ourselves into believing things that aren't true.

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>>855875
>Why do so many philosophers insist that "subjective experience is irreducible"? Because, I suppose, like you and me, they can look at an object and "instantly know" what it is. When I look at you, I sense no intervening processes. I seem to "see" you instantly. The same for almost every word you say: I instantly seem to know what it means. When I touch your hand, you "feel it directly." It all seems so basic and immediate that there seems no room for analysis. The feelings of being seem so direct that there seems to be nothing to be explained. I think this is what leads those philosophers to believe that the connections between seeing and feeling must be inexplicable. Of course we know from neurology that there are dozens of processes that intervene between the retinal image and the structures that our brains then build to represent what we think we see. That idea of a separate world for 'subjective experience' is just an excuse for the shameful fact that we don't have adequate theories of how our brains work. This is partly because those brains have evolved without developing good representations of those processes. Indeed, there probably are good evolutionary reasons why we did not evolve machinery for accurate "insights" about ourselves. Our most powerful ways to solve problems involve highly serial processes-and if these had evolved to depend on correct representations of how they, themselves work, our ancestors would have thought too slowly to survive.

Millennia of philosophical "thought" rekt in one passage, workshy philosophy undergrads on suicide watch.

>>855629
Subjective experience is an evolutionary disadvantage. It has no effects and wastes energy. From an evolutionary point of view we would be better off if we were just robots without conscious experience.Effectively in our behaviour nothing would change but our brains wouldn't waste energy generating qualia.

>>855815
>Consciousness is either real or illusory.
Calling consciousness an "illusion" makes no sense because an illusion is a content of consciousness. Without consciousness there cannot be any illusions.

>>856171
>It has no effects.

nigga please

>>856171
>From an evolutionary point of view we would be better off if we were just robots without conscious experience.Effectively in our behaviour nothing would change but our brains wouldn't waste energy generating qualia.
I don't think you know how evolution works. Nothing states that evolution makes things more efficient, even if the fact that we have subjective experience isn't beneficial from a survival perspective doesn't mean that it wouldn't evolve, evolution only eliminates traits that are directly detrimental to survival or reproduction. Maybe would be better off without consciousness, but evolution doesn't create "better off" just "less likely to die from the environment and more likely to have kids".

>>856171
But we do have simple animals that operate almost like that. Some of them got a little bit smarter to not get eaten, some developed better instincts...and so on. What we have is simply the consequence of an arms race between those who eat and those who do not want to be eaten.

A robot that can establish long term goals sounds pretty useful to me.

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>>853414
OP here.
Ive been thinking about this all aday and I had an interesting thought. If its not original or if you recognize the position please let me know! I would love to read more about it.

While each of our qualia may be particularly distinct, the most striking aspect about them is their uncanny similarity. You, me, and most people that can hear will all agree that a specific note has been struck on a piano. Like middle C. All three of us will accurately identify the same note as Middle C. In fact, this bizarre shared experience is the only reason music works, especially orchestras. You can see that each musician in an orchestra is essentially hearing a unique subjective sound yet they can coordinate so accurately as to make pure coincidence absurd.
I suspect that it will be in the uncanny similarities that we will find the "man behind the curtain" of consciousness. Qualia may be less important than we think.

How is it that virtually every healthy homo spaien could conceivably accurately reproduce the sounds of an orchestra in any part of the world no matter their familiarity or knowledge of music. Something about Symphony No. 9 is the same for literally everyone. But if each experience is unique and subjective, how is a collaborations such as an orchestra even possible?

Cont.

>>857045
I believe the answer to that question is a species based pattern or a template of perception. Here I run into the limitations of language. Please bear with me and recognize that all analogies are ultimately insufficient.

What Im saying is that what we experience is similar enough to collaborate and navigate the world as social and industrial creatures. This might even begin to answer Platos nagging question of forms. Why do we all know what a chair is but no chair is perfect "chairness" but rather seems as if cut from a universal and permanent design. Platos forms do exist! But not in the way he reasoned. Those forms are expressions of our species based consciousness. Essentially we may have an instinct for forms.

If that is true, then we really cnat know anything about anything. Empiricism couldnt survive in that environment. But it would explain why math is so weirdly descriptive of natural phenomenon. It isnt because there's a God who is fond of Pi or the Fibonacci Sequence or the 80-20 ratio. Its because we actively and instinctual construct the world. Since its a construct of our instincts, the metrics will reflect our bias for symmetry, ratio, and logarithim. Its like programming a computer game and being shocked the visuals on the screen are the result of a perfect placed programming language. Java works so well to run certain agmes because they are expressed in Java, not because the Java language is some ultimate law of colors and sound.

I hope I made my idea as comprehensible as possible. Really looking forward to feedback and critique! Let me know if I should clarify further.

>>855875
>Incompetentium
Im going to use that. What a perfect descriptor.
You may have just coined a term.

>>857045
>the most striking aspect about them is their uncanny similarity. You, me, and most people that can hear will all agree that a specific note has been struck on a piano.

>I suspect that it will be in the uncanny similarities that we will find the "man behind the curtain" of consciousness

It's called evolution, and the fact that we belong to the same species.

>>857132
Exactly! From that perspective evolutoion is perfectly equipped to give rise to consciousness but then youre at an impass. How do we know evolution itself isnt just a reflection of our instinctual model of reality? How can Empiricism survive? Its a paradox that empircism might lead us here but empiricism itself must necessarily be called into question.

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>>857140
>How do we know evolution itself isn't just a reflection of our instinctual model of reality? How can Empiricism survive?

Are you saying how can we trust our own senses? because I'd agree that we are susceptible to a wide variety of illusory perceptions, and that we can't completely trust our own senses? Pareidolia being a good example.

>>857152
Not only our senses. We learned not to trust our sense during the Enlightenment. We may not be able to trust the tools we use to correct for the sensory illusions.

>>857152
Another way of putting it is, how do you calibrate a unit of measurement? It would be an even more fundamental shift than what occurred in the Enlightenment.

>>855778
Not worth the reply but i'll bite.
We understand more about the origin of life than we do gravity. Which one of those is the better fit for your "theory" label? Google "Scientific Method" and expand your horizons.

>>855778
>Either demonstrate the mechanism or reasonable evidence for the mechanism
Evolution is the change of allele frequencies over time, you might as well be asking "how do apples fall," it's of no surprise to anyone if I have 200 kids and you have 1 there's gonna be more of my alleles than of yours in the generation after our own. Tell me how that is not evidence of evolution.
t. I don't make grand absurd claims while pretending I know what I'm talking about

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>>857159
>>857163
Aside from that you'd also have to include bias.

I enjoyed pic related on the subject.

>>854292

The brain is for consciousness like glasses are for the eyes.

>>854244
Ive thought of myself as a swarm intelligence ever since I learned how complex and nuanced the intelligence of a swarm can be.

>>854270
Oh wow. Is it really an unfalsifiable? It seems like the only evidence needed to the contrary is a demonstration of the physical mechanism or system that produces consciousness. Its not the same as the intangible unicorns of this world. Its a bare hypothesis but it is vulnerable to contrary evidence and there are some conceivable experiments to test its validity.

When you see blue, your eyes cause the triggering of certain neurons. When you think of blue many of the same neurons are triggered, just paired with others. Why is this such a big deal to people?

>>857244
Ah there you are. The cold clammy hand of reductionism. Your explanation seems more like an interactive movie than consciousness.

>>857251

I guess it must be magic or time travelling mongooses from the 48th dimension that are responsible.

>>857259
There may be hard barriers. We arent guaranteed to learn everything about reality. There's no telling what weirdness we may never penetrate. Its remarkable that we were able to learn so much already.

Your explanation is inadequate. If it was a simple matter of nervous system juice and various chemicals we shouldnt have qualia.

>>857267
>If it was a simple matter of nervous system juice and various chemicals we shouldnt have qualia.

There's absolutely no reason to think that whatsoever. It is just pure wild assertion by people desperate for there to be magic.

>>857277
I'd agree with this, If human conciousness arose due to evolutionary processes (and hence previously didn't exist in it's current form) which only influence physical attributes, then 'conciousness' (whatever this actually is) seems to arise purely from the brain and body.

>>857277
I never said it was magic or mongoose. My suggestion was that consciousness may be more nuanced than the materialistic perspective. Logically it doesnt follow that law abiding particles can give rise to the cornucopia of qualia.

>>857267
>If it was a simple matter of nervous system juice and various chemicals we shouldnt have qualia.

Why not? That's like saying that a computer shouldn't have a GUI if it's just electronic signals.

>>857286
>If human conciousness arose due to evolutionary processes (and hence previously didn't exist in it's current form) which only influence physical attributes, then 'conciousness' (whatever this actually is) seems to arise purely from the brain and body.

What makes you say human consciousness didn't arise from evolution? We can see evidence of abstract reasoning and tool use in the remains relating to ancestor life forms.

>>857292
>Logically it doesnt follow that law abiding particles can give rise to the cornucopia of qualia.

We barely understand those laws as they are. Why wouldn't it follow that we can possess qualia from these particles?

Also, if it is materialistic, what other explanation is there besides some variety of magical woowoo?

>>857292
>I never said it was magic or mongoose. My suggestion was that consciousness may be more nuanced than the materialistic perspective.

So magic then. It is either natural or supernatural, materialistic or magic.

>>857296
I might not have expressed myself well, but I meant that conciousness definitely seems to have arisen due to evolution.

>>857305
But thats wrong! Even if I am right, which I am completely agnostic about dont get me wrong, that wouldnt invalidate the rest of Science. I dont doubt that some system of matter is responsible for consciousness. If I am right it could have far reaching implications for how we live within societies. We could inevitably improve the world if we can unravel the gordian knot of arcane physical properties that conjure consciousness.

>>857319

That's not "more nuanced than materialism" that is materialism combined with a claim that there is some kind of force or property or substance that we have not yet found that is responsible for consciousness. A claim you have not one drop of evidence for.

>>857333
The evidence is qualia! Even the founders of empiricism and materialism knew they couldnt address the existence of qualia.

>>857333
Its not even a claim its a verifiable, testable, and falsifiable hypothesis. Like I said im agnostic on the matter.

>>857338

That's not evidence. And let's not forget the likes of Newton were writing before we knew virtually anything about light and the biology of the eye or the brain. That doesn't mean we have all the answers but making appeals to authority to naturalistic philosophers from centuries ago at the birth of science as a discipline is ridiculous.

>>857351
It wasnt merely an appeal to authority. Many of them wrote extensively on the topic. The point is they had very clear insights into the problem that are worth considering.

>>857347
>Its not even a claim its a verifiable, testable, and falsifiable hypothesis.

I think you will have to do a bit of work on it before you can call it a testable hypothesis. An awful lot of work.

If you could make a hypothesis and do a test on it then you wouldn't be posting about it on /his/ you would be preparing to accept your Nobel prize and taking your place among the greatest scientists of all time.

>>857360
Woo what a way to belittle the layman. There are conceivable experiments that can empirically show the existence of qualia. Thats really all you need. You identify the phenomenon and go from there. The next bit is simply acknowledging that it is falsifiable. If consciousness is the result of simple particles we will inevitably identify that mechanism. Its a perfectly workable hypothesis.

>>857379
>If consciousness is the result of simple particles

wew lad, who's being the reductionist now.

>>857381
I was simply acknowledging your position. You literally just admitted to embracing the naturalist perspective. Magic or mongoose right?

>>857381
To add to that, the properties of particles themselves don't explain the biological complexity resulting from evolutionary processes.

>>857389
Right, thats why Dawkins calls it the "crane" that lifted inert matter to ever increasing complexity. Now you dont sound as much like the militant materialist I had in mind.

>>857388
Different anon to the one who you made that comment towards, but see >>857389

>>857390
Dennet also uses the skyhook argument in Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

>>857379

Look mate. I'm a layman on neuroscience as well. I'm not belittling you, but simply making a potentially testable claim with no detail and then grandiosely calling it a verifiable, testable hypothesis is not sensible. I wasn't joking or mocking when I said if you had seriously discovered a new "thing" that was responsible for consciousness that is currently outside the knowledge of science and if you could seriously run tests on it then you would indeed be in line for a Nobel prize and be remembered in history like Newton, Einstein and Darwin. It would be huge, an enormous event in human history.

So stop making claims your ass can't back.

>>857400
Sobering words, but I'll definetly sleep on it. Right now it seems quite feasible but you're right in what youre saying. This is why I post here. Present ideas to be tested in the arena of discussion. Im still unconvinced by your pessimism, I'll dedicate more thought to it and see if it stands the daylight.

>>857399
Meant to say opposed skyhooks and advocated cranes.

>>857251
You can think of it like that if you want. If you work your way through that metaphor and add in metacognition which arises from similar processes then it is probably not too far off.

>>857251
Have you never taken psychedelics and seen colours in the complete absence of external stimuli.

>>857500
*excluding said psychedelics (serotonin analogues)

>>857500
I've dreamed. Lucidly at that. I know full well just how ethereal reality is. Its that intangibility that makes me question materialistic reductionism.

>>857504
Just because it may not intuitively seem like an explanation doesn't exclude it from being the actual explanation.

>>857504
>dreamed
Good example. Humans only dream during REM sleep, which is when brain activity most resembles activity when awake.

>>857507
Of course not. The more intuitive arguement is material reductionism. As simple spark in the right spot seems clean, complete. But I cant ignore the reality of internal experience. If it is just an illusion, which I tend to think it is, its so perfect that I dont mind. If im even close to right that could open up some interesting frontiers.

>>857521
>But I cant ignore the reality of internal experience.
Who is doing that? Again, under this model, the internally-stimulated experience of "blue" is fairly similar to the externally-stimulated experience of "blue."

>>857521
Dualism has seemed more intuitive through history and even if this view is inherent it doesn't suggest that it is correct.

>>857521
>open up some interesting frontiers

Of course it could, but in hindsight I guess we'll be able to identify new avenues and dead ends.

>>857534
>>857527
This makes me think you my have missed the point. Im not advocating dualism. Im advocating a model a broader communal model of consciousness that is currently true for and actively changing our species.

Ok, so you're using outdated science and pairing it with new age woo woo.
We actually have completely and entirely understood consciousness for about a decade now.
Memories and thoughts are patterns electro-chemically stored in neuro-pathways. These patterns interact with both each other and systems [dedicated brain regions] around them.
It's that simple.
The human brain evolved as a consequence to survival of protein stringe [DNA] because those that survived...well, survived.
Survival plus propagation/mutation = complex development.

Conscientiousness evolved out of survival.
It's not different than an arm or a leg evolving, and yes your appendages are just as complex as consciousness, and both are tied to the central nervous system.

There is nothing mystical about our existence.
Just remember: 4 fundamental forces + time + survival + difference/mutation = Complexity.

>>857554
Look. All I started with is this weird thing that happens behind your eyes called subjective experience. I know what you wrote is the current working model of consciousness however, subjective experience is not explained by it. All it takes is an apple to fall the other direction to turn physics on its head, or a fossil rabbit in the precambrian.

>>857244

A simple truth sometimes is better, as It can lead us to more complex version. When everything is just a common system of moving and connected particles, there is no room for something like "free will" or "consciousness". More proper term for things we see would be "projection". It's just an effect of moving particles, and in fact we are them at all. They are moving, because others do. Man-a-machine and determinism are the key to understand our roots, accept it, and find something more interesting...

>>857624
>When everything is just a common system of moving and connected particles, there is no room for something like "free will" or "consciousness".
Sure there is. You just strip away the metaphysical baggage and look at the actual meaning of the word.

Consciousness is not a thing by itself, it has no brain/physical component

What we experience as consciousness is the outward expression of our memories. In the brain we can find two things, the stuff that we take in and the stuff that we keep. Consciousness is the interaction between these two things. (Yes, that means bugs and animals have it too, just not the same kind as humans). This cannot be found physically because it doesn't need physical brain parts to make it happen since the two forces that interact to make it happen have their separate but connected parts.

>>857720
>it has no brain/physical component

>>>/x/

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>>857723

I personally think consciousness is just an illusion that is created by our brain, in order for us to cope and survive in a harsh environment.

In some fundamental sense, there is nothing different between a brain and a rock, they are both just made of matter, but because we have natural self-interest as animals we imagine them different.

>>857554
>tries to explain how we've solved the hard problem of consciousness, which states physical processes cannot explain the subjective component of experience
>by posting about physical processes

Autists will never, ever, ever, ever get it

>he ignored my posts then replied to others with the exact same thing
Wow, what an awful confirmation bias.

>>857379
Experiencing things does not mean qualia is behind them all, how many times do I have to repeat this you cockmongler

>>857251
Ah there you are. A dumbass that believes in magic

>>857954
>which states physical processes cannot explain the subjective component of experience
Which is incorrect. It can do so very simply.
B

>>857570
>>857954

>>854334
>>854255

>Not believing in made up bullshit is reductionist
Ok

>>857985
No, m8, you're fundamentally not getting it. There is nothing about the electrical activity of the brain that should suggest the existence of interiority other than the fact that it does and we're here, alive and conscious. You're not getting it. Map is not the territory.

>>857991
>if you don't buy my reductionistic worldview wholesale you're just another one of those religious kooks current year c'mon

No.

>>857995
You're right, I'm not getting it. If we can see that it does, it doesn't matter if such a thing is intuitive or not. Reality doesn't "care" about what it suggests, it simply is.

>>858002
What? And that "is-ness" about consciousness has yet to be adequately described. Where exactly is the threshold between [physical activity] and [conscious recognition]? Where in the actual brain itself does the leap from quantitative to qualitative take place?

>>858008
>Where exactly is the threshold between [physical activity] and [conscious recognition]?
When the cascade threshold for a given thought (characteristic pattern of neuron firings) is reached such that the signal reaches working memory. This involves the entire cerebral cortex to varying degrees based on what the thought is and the brain thinking it.

>>857996

Yes. Dualism is religious kookery.

>>857554
>We actually have completely and entirely understood consciousness for about a decade now.
Every neuroscientist would laugh in your face for making such a retarded claim.

>>857775
>consciousness is just an illusion
This makes no sense at all. In order to experience an illusion, you need consciousness. Illusions are contents of consciousness. That's like saying your hardware is actually a software.

>>857991
>conscious experience is "made up bullshit"
Get a load of this non-human robot.

>>858019
Religion is outdated. There are so many dualist stances which don't involve any religious cuckery. Your lack of education is showing.

>>858028

No there aren't. Dualism is in itself a religious belief without evidence.

>>858026

Humans are biological robots.

>>858043
Educate yourself please. You are wrong. Dualism does not imply any religioncuck shit.

>>858046
We did however evolve consciousness, so that separates us from non-biological robots and from animals.

>>858046
*tips*
A robot functions following a specific program; whether or not humans have or not free will is subject of debate.

>>858060
Free will is logically and physically impossible. This is not up to debate.

>>858054
He said religious, but it isn't a religion. It's still blind faith, much like I could believe in unicorns.

Your subjective experience does not necessarily mean qualia exists.

>>858054

It is in itself "religioncuck shit". A superstitious belief in magic. Harry Potter tier stuff.

>>858057

Animals have consciousness.

>>858064
>Your subjective experience does not necessarily mean qualia exists.
Qualia is just a word for the phenomenon of subjective experience. Why are you so retarded?

>>858060
If you have pain and emotions, you are being guided by your biology. If you have to resist it then you aren't exactly free.

>>858072
Because a computer with a camera and no screen and no output ports is also in some way having a "subjective experience". Sorry, I forgot to put it in quotes.

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>>858066
currently inexplicable ='= magic

You're the religicuck if you incorrectly believe to have all the answers. Get rekt by Sam Harris.

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness

>>858069
No, they don't. Their brains are too primitive to have consciousness. Stop denying evolution.

>>858077
>panpsychism
>>>/x/

>>858080
*tips fedora*

>>858080
>only my definition of awareness, that I can't clearly define makes us special!

>>858080
Some highly social animals have a Theory of Mind and have conciousness.

>>858080

You have no idea what your are talking about.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf

>>858087
>outdated populist pop sci garbage
Non-STEM retard detected. First of all this declaration is of informal nature and not a scientific result. Secondly it has been criticized and thoroughly destroyed by other scientists.

>>858062
What are guesses, then? What stimuli would force a man to choose between an arbitrary set of equally probable and identical paths?
Say, you would be in a room with 4 doors, each numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4. Would your choice be a result of environmental factors or is it something you choose?

>>858083
Why does it offend you that humans evolved to be special? We evolved to be superior. If you don't like it, go leave civilization and live with the animals.

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>>858080
Un-autism yourself.

>>858084
>baseless claims

>>858079

Oh right. So straight away the usual old trick. There is not a shred of evidence for dualism of any mystical force that is generating consciousness and Harris in that article does not support that claim.

Yet all of a sudden you are stating the burden of proof is on me and telling me I have to explain everything or your completely made up stuff is true.

Bullshit.

>>858097
The brain is a biological organ. It deterministically processes information. There is no magical "free will" interfering with this process.

>>858096

Go ahead and post your citations rather than trash talking.

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>>858099
>consciousness isn't a continuum of greater and greater cognitive and spiritual ability

Humans are just a rung on a ladder, ascend with us brother

>>858106
And what would influence somebody to choose 1 over 2, 3 or 4? Some "magic factor"?

>>858108
>hurr durr I am too dumb to use google
Not gonna spoon-feed you. I'm not a pleb-enabler.

>>858081
Where did I say we all shared the same hard drive?

Having data you can't transfer (yet) doesn't mean the bits are part of a supernatural force you call qualia. I probably started you off by saying subjective, which you take as the "special experiences you have" instead of the bits in your head. My bad.

>>858099
>he dodged the challenge on clearly defining awareness

>>858105
>can't prove his claims
>declares burden of proof to be a fallacy
Hello /x/.

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>>858109
>spiritual ability

>>858114
There is nothing supernatural about qualia. It's just a word for subjective experience. I already told you so, and you could have at least tried to read the wikipedia. But instead you choose to continue showing off your low verbal intelligence.

>>858122
>subjective experience
>the wikipedia
>verbal intelligence
>>>/tumblr/

>>858097
Human choice is just another heuristic, that doesn't imply free will, unless you think a computer doing DTL counts.

>>858125
From fallacies to memes... What's next? Plain insults? Come throw another tantrum like a toddler. It's obvious you're upset and you have no arguments anymore.

>>858118
>it doesn't pander to my hedonism so it must be woo woo

>>858122
The effect of pain on your mind is the experience, and looking too hard for "how it feels" is a fool's errand.

>>858143
>implying I would ever support hedonism
projective straw man

>>858137
>throwing out ad hom instead of trying to have a discussion
Well, if that's what you want to do, go ahead. You're not going to make me believe in magic so easily.

>>858145
>and looking too hard for "how it feels" is a fool's errand.
Why?

>>858116

The burden of proof is on you if your claiming dualism.

Unless you seriously believe the brain is just a useless piece of grey goo that has nothing to do with our thought processes then you are already agreeing with my proposition.

The dualist is claiming something in addition to the brain is also a work, an additional claim on top of my proposition.

The burden of proof is on them to prove it, not to declare someone else has to disprove their unfalsifiable claims; that is what religious people do.

>>858151
It's not my goal to make you believe in anything. I'm merely pointing out where your statements are too simple-minded to convince any non-retard.

>>858152
Because when I said subjective I didn't mean how it feels, I meant the aggregate of your memories and how they guide your decisions. There has to be some word for why people make different decisions given the same choice.

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Just as you exist in the third dimension, there is also you in up to five dimensions.

>>858113

Thank you for your admission you were pulling trash talk out of your anus.

>>858155
Okay then. If you agree that we cannot yet explain qualia (and might possibly never explain them in terms of physical processes), then we're done here.

If you however deny the very existence of subjective experience, then you are making an outrageous claim, which requires convincing arguments or proof.

>>858163
And there doesn't necessarily have to be the experience you describe as supernatural. It's almost like you're trying to pull a variant of the "first mover" on me.

>>858127
Arguing that free will exists is a manifestation of free will. You choose to believe whether or not your actions are innately deterministic or not, because these two beliefs would influence the outcomes of all your other events, as well.

>>858168
Thank you for your admission, that you are a dogmatic science-denying fool and not willing to learn or to change your views based on contradictory evidence.

>>858163
>I didn't mean how it feels
But I mean that.

>>858171
>straw man

>>858172
Making decisions does not necessarily mean free will exists.

>>858174

You're delusional. A bit of trash talk is not contradictory evidence. You didn't even provide a criticism let alone back it with evidence.

>>858178
Making decisions is literally free will.

>>858169

So you ARE making the claim that the brain is just useless grey goo and that the processes going on within it have nothing to do with our thought processes.

Interesting.

>>858180
It's not my duty to copypaste thiings you can easily google. You are not willing to even consider that your dogma might be wrong, even though there is shitload of evidence disproving your crap. You're basically a religitard. Merely a simple google search of criticism against your "declaration". would provide hundreds of sources.

>>858184
Nope, never made that claim. Troll harder, idiot.

>>858182
Then do current AI have free will? If not, then say why a computer making a decision autonomously is not good enough.

If so, you're the first person I've ever seen to argue that and that's pretty novel.

>>858185

Shitload of evidence that you can't provide. This is a ridiculous conversation. Your argument amounts to nothing more than shouting "you're wrong nah nah nah nah nah".

>>858180
Quit replying to people who don't want to have a discussion. He just admitted he doesn't even want to take the effort of wrecking you in the thread with a simple copy paste.

>>858188
No, AI doesn't and AI does not operate autonomously. It operates purely on based on input. The only "decisions" aren't actual decisions, and take into play things like random number generators, which aren't actually random.

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>>858192
I told you where to find the evidence. You refuse to do so. Religicuckery at its finest.

>>858187

So you DO agree that our brain has something to do with our thought processes then?

>>858202
Of course. This is simple biology. What the fuck is your problem?

>>858207

That IF you are claiming something else on top of biology and the brain then the burden of proof is on you.

I hardly think I am making a complex point.

>>858200
>i can't be arsed to back up my own arguments

Why should anyone take you seriously?

>>858199
Humans operate only on input and processing it. And not every heuristic uses random elements. Some of them don't even use stochastics. And even if they do, who is to say humans don't use a little random once in a while?

Is making a move in go or chess a real decision for a human, but not one for a computer?

>>858210
I'm not making a claim on whether qualia are biological or dualistic. I'm merely pointing out the fact that we do not yet have an explanation for them and that thought experiments seem to imply there might never be a physical explanation. This is called the "hard problem of consciousness" and is well known in philosophy as well as neuroscience. Why do I even need to explain this to you? You already know this.

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>>858214
I backed them up. You refuse to take a look at the evidence. Typical religitard.

>>858223

I was criticising dualism. I don't know whether you have just swapped places with another anon during the conversation without making your position clear or you have moved the goalposts.

Dualism is belief in magic.

>>858225
>I backed them up

"Hurrrrr use google" is not backing up.

>>858220
And memories*

>>858228
Well-established facts can be easily googled. If you're too dumb to use google, you're also too dumb to understand said facts if I copypasted them here.

>>858225

If you bothered using Google you would see how wrong you are.

>>858236

It is a well established fact that you are wrong.

>>858227
>Dualism is belief in magic.
Not necessarily. Let me help you out with the obvious wikipedia link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_%28philosophy_of_mind%29

There are many forms of dualism which do not involve religion.

>>858237
>>858238
ridiculous

>>858025
>That's like saying your hardware is actually a software.

No it's not, because we know what the hardware is. The brain.

We also know that sensory experience can exist without self-aware consciousness, e.g in a monkey or a bird.

>>858236
You're just a vitriolic bickering idiot who is using trump rhetoric to argue. No one in this thread should ever take you seriously.

>>858220
>Is making a move in go or chess a real decision for a human
these are both bad examples
professional CS: GO gameplay takes into account things like positioning, ammo, timer and visible coverage; maps aren't symmetric and both teams have different objectives
chess takes into account things like strategies to take out the more valuable pieces and piece protection, thinking several moves ahead
where free will comes into play is when the outcomes of a decision are the same and the all the choices are equally stimulating (left/right, up/down)

>>858240
Magic isn't always religion. Any supernatural, intangible force can be called magic, or at least a thing that exists in concept but not in an actual sense.
>>858242
Explicitly define awareness.

>>858241

No he's right. Animals do have consciousness.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf

>>858244
>projecting

>>858240

Dualism is a supernatural claim.

>>858248
See >>858096

>>858253

What? That post doesn't have any content.

>>858252
>>858247
Consciousness doesn't need to be a "supernatural force". Not even in dualism. Take a look at the wiki link I posted. If you believe in epiphenomenalism, i.e. the view that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of brain processes, then this might already be considered a dualistic position.

>>858245
Adding real time elements makes it real? There are AI that work in that time frame, you know.

CS players do strategize. And not all choices are equal for where to go on a map, even when it is symmetrical because of the possible behavior of the other player, which is based on partial observability. We have things for that. That's what the heuristic an AI and the human mind determine. And if the choices are all equal, then it never mattered anyway.

>>858247
>Explicitly define awareness.

The ability of a organic system to differentiate objects and states in it's surroundings.

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>>858254

>>858257
Can the bits and switches of a computer ever count as consciousness? There's an unclear distinction between aware and not.

>>858262
>differentiate between objects and states
Computer vision is making inroads, and plenty of animals can identify stimuli.

>adding organic arbitrarily
Why is that a requirement? Identify the special element, because your definition seems to fit the things you deny as aware.

>>856171
t. guy who read blindsight once

>>858261
>Adding real time elements makes it real?
no, but games like CS: GO and chess are about being able to make good decisions based on predictions
the only move that is uninfluenced by stimuli in chess is the first move, so this is the only move influence by free will

>>858275
>Computer vision is making inroads, and plenty of animals can identify stimuli.

So?

Self-aware consciousness =/= Being able to react to stimuli

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>>858275
>Can the bits and switches of a computer ever count as consciousness?
Since the only known consequence of qualia is our bafflemant about them, the only way to tell whether a computer is capable of consciousness would be by creating an AI which on its own manages to arrive at the question of qualia. When an AI - without being programmed to do so - starts thinking about the hard problem of consciousness, and formulating arguments on this issue, then we can be fairly certain that it does have consciousness.

>>858282
>the only move that is uninfluenced by stimuli in chess
The first move in Chess is uninfluenced by stimuli? Is every opening move then equally likely?

>>858302
Is chess just a game of luck?

>>858302
no, but to simulate every possible chess move is something humans aren't able to do, so there's no way to know what first move is more advantageous

>>858313
>there's no way to know what first move is more advantageous
So, in other words, chess is a game about randomly happening upon the best first move by freely selecting one and making the correct choice by luck. After that, there are a series of "correct," non-free choices which are only deviated from by human error or deficiencies in processing?

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>>858313
>there's no way to know what first move is more advantageous
wow

>>858325
no, it's a game of strategies and predicting future moves based on advantages and objectives, but I don't know enough about them to argue about chess

>>858331
>it's a game of strategies and predicting future moves based on advantages and objectives
Are these freely chosen?

>>858282
Nothing you said is something a computer can't be made to do.

>>858290
Guess what your definition of awareness was.
>>858262

Reacting to stimuli isn't the same as identifying, but monkeys and elephants have demonstrated knowledge of abstract concepts, albeit not on the same level as us.

>>858295
That's a long way from now, but that's not a bad answer. Although, we have programming and memories, just like computers do. As long as the software is there.

AI are designed to answer questions and not ask them, for now.

>>858313
>implying
We do know what first moves are more advantageous. No one opens by moving the pawns on the very end first. A few moves is a huge search space, but many years of gaming have taught humans, much like computers can be taught with test games.

>>858336
depends on how many turns can you think ahead, beyond that, it's free choice
chess is a bad example for free will in the first place

>>858337
a computer can simulate all the possible chess game moves, but that is the Shannon number, 10^120, and no computer today can compute it

>>858340
Is your only criteria for free choice that the decision is hard to make? I'm not quite seeing the difference between a slightly harder problem and a free choice. If you mean that the answer isn't clear, then many AI make guesses. That's the definition of heuristic. I agree that whatever we use is pretty flexible, but that still doesn't imply free will.

>>858345
I never said a computer worked out every move ahead. Afterall, no human has done it, either. There are a good handful of widely used openings, nonetheless.

>>858337
The point I'm trying to make is that it's impossible to distinguish between the so-called "higher consciousness" of humans, and the "lower consciousness" of other animals, without simply appealing to shit like culture, art, or science, as if it proves anything substantive.

We humans imagine that since we can build great things, that we are somehow different from the animal kingdom, when we are clearly not. We are still an animal, and everything from war, racism, corruption and murder proves as such, but it also means that the buildings and art that we can create must in some sense be a possibility of nature itself, because there's nothing magical about us.

>>858378
no that is not the criteria
what I'm saying is that simulation of every possible chess moves in a chess game hasn't been done yet, so there is no exact knowledge of what decisions are more advantageous, because we don't have all the outcomes of every single decision
opening and strategies are a set of moves that were proven advantageous by trial and test, not by computing all the possible outcomes

>>858397
>opening and strategies are a set of moves that were proven advantageous by trial and test
So free will is simply a decision that involves stimuli as gained through testing, rather a decision involving stimuli as gained through brute force computation?

>>858410
no, that is a game of chess, not free will
chess is a bad example
a better example would be choose in a square room between opening one of the 4 identical doors on each side

>>858428
>a better example would be choose in a square room between opening one of the 4 identical doors on each side
If someone were to choose the door to their right because they are superstitious and believe left is unlucky, is that a free choice?

>>858437
>biases
spin him around and makes him choose again
to follow or not superstition is still free will

>>858441
He is spun around x times. He still picks the door to his right (regardless of which door it actually is), because he is extremely superstitious.

Is this still a free choice?

>>855881
>evolution
>evolutionary theory
pick one before you conflate such terms again.
>>857170
>not realizing that most great discoveries were originally "b8"
Its a legitimate objection.
We don't understand more about the origin of life.... abiogenesis is very much in its infancy, not to mention its like knowing history, none of evolutionary theory is demonstrably adequate aside from historical retroactive examination, which doesn't even justify the mechanism that the theory itself puts forth.
>>857195
I am not asking for evidence of evolution, I am asking for evidence that the the mechanism proposed by the theory is sufficient.
>>857195
>t. I don't make grand absurd claims while pretending I know what I'm talking about
t. I can discern basic questions about biology without being an illiterate scientist
Also
>asking for evidence
>grand claims
wew lad

>>858446
you still have decisions that require more or less conscious thought, like which side of the mouse to chew with
to be 100% superstitious and never choose left now boils down to remembering it, which requires constantly thinking about superstitions, again, by free will

>>858458
>side of the mouse
*mouth
>>858446
again, I would say even opening one of the 4 doors is not a good example, because it gives the impression that the decision is important and it is the only thing on your mind at the time

>>858458
>now boils down to remembering it, which requires constantly thinking about superstitions, again, by free will
So free will remains free will even if prompted by stimuli, so long as the person doing the choosing is also choosing which stimuli?

>>858465
What is a good example of free will?

>>858466
you can't choose stimuli, you chose how to react, and upon reflecting on these choices you develop biases
but the first instance is always the most "free"

>>858475
I guess things like which side of the body to sleep on that you develop in your infancy, or cracking knuckless
things that you've always done because you're used to do it

>>858498
So free will only exists truly exists in 100% novel situations, and every similar situation is increasingly less free? If we were to plot a "freeness" vs "time" graph over a person's life, no matter the particular shape it would trend downwards?

>things that you've always done because you're used to do it
This is opposite to the first explanation, where only the first instance is truly free.

I honestly don't get why materialists are so butthurt over people believing in "magic", since magic is just things that exist beyond human comprehension.

Is that what it is?
Autists throwing a tantrum over the possibility that there are limits to human reasoning?

Kind of gives credence to the theist argument that atheists just replaced worship of God with worship of themselves, and all this butthurt is simply the Church of Reason lashing out at the blasphemous statement that Human reason is not omnipotent.

>>858576
>I honestly don't get why materialists are so butthurt over people believing in "magic", since magic is just things that exist beyond human comprehension.
If your belief is magic is harmless, go for it. At most people will have spirited debates that might get a little heated.

If your belief in magic causes you to do shit like reject vaccines, you are actively damaging herd immunity. There have already been reappearances of easily vaccinated diseases in extreme anti-vax communities.

>>853467
Darwinism isn't a thing any more than drawing triangles is Pythagorism.

In any case it certainly has nothing to do with theology.

>>858512
yes

>>858380
Sorry, I'm going to pick on you a bit. It's always funny to say that bad things humans do are animal, but when we find an animal that shows social cohesion and altruism, we call it a human characteristic.

>>858458

That's memory or possibly input, which computers also have. That doesn't indicate free will.

Also, you mention choosing things in a room arbitrarily as free will, while complaining that a computer using statistical analysis or random elements is a reason it does not have free will.
>>858498
Any robot can react to stimuli given a sensor. And all heuristics introduce bias, because a heuristic allows anything to decide that one thing is better than the other. Both computers and humans do this.

>>858576
I honestly don't get why naturalists are so butthurt over people not believing in the same things.

>>858576
Also, nice lack of refutation. Not knowing every detail doesn't mean we have to accept your stopgap measure.

>>858729
>which computers also have
memory doesn't change the outcome of a program unless the program explicitly uses it

>>858743
If a human uses memory they are also accessing it explicitly. An inkling of a memory that you "didn't think about" is not some form of memoryless memory.

Either you use a memory, or you don't. Your attempt to box out computers takes out a whole swath of human thinking at the same time.

>>858777
well there aren't really any computers capable of simulating human life so a comparison between the two is irrelevant

>>858787
But both computers and humans use heuristics and different ways of storing and encoding data. Now you're just going to turn tail after trying to compare them? How can you say they are so inseparable if you can't even clearly define the differences?

>>858587
I'm talking more about people like
>>854160
>>857259
who are obviously offended by the idea that there may be more to reality than we have discovered or that there are aspects of reality we are incapable of understanding.

I mean you talk about belief in magic causing harm, but it seems to me that not believing in "magic" is much more harmful as it promotes relentless reductionism to the point that humans are simply considered the equivalent of meat robots.

Now you may think me sentimental for finding that troubling but my concerns are rooted entirely in logic. If humans are just meat based algorithms, what logical base do we have to claim that shutting down a meat based algorithm is immoral?
What makes the human algorithm deserve special treatment over the one that runs my pocket calculator?
The fact that it's made of meat?
From a strictly material stand point that's very illogical.

It's all very troubling to me as I'm beginning to think this whole rationalism think was a bad idea that's going to get us all killed eventually.

>>858933
>not believing in magic is more harmful
Having your feelings hurt isn't the same as people dying from superstitious beliefs.

And your assertion certainly isn't logical. Suddenly trying to appeal that way after asking us to "listen and believe" doesn't fly. Especially after waving your hands around like this. Now you're making even more wild assumptions than before, to attack us instead of our arguments.

I'm starting to think you aren't as neutral as you pretended to be before.

>>858933

I was one of those people, my post was playful satire. I wasn't offended.

You also seem to misunderstand, magic is not what we haven't discovered yet. Magic is supernatural as opposed to natural.

That is the thing I find a tad tiresome, the constant need to simply come up with a supernatural explanation for anything we haven't discovered yet, go back a few hundred years and it was lightning and disease, go back two hundred years and it was how humans came into existence, now it is consciousness and abiogenesis and the start of the Universe.

>>858112
There's no magic factor. If there is no difference then the first number that popped into your head, in a nutshell, would be the one you go with. And the number that pops into your head is completely arbitrarily shot into your stream of consciousness by subconscious processes, which were in turn effected by a million other causes.

This isn't that hard, magic man.

>>858112
Memories, possibly genes. They have subtle influences people may not realize.

>>858933
>If humans are just meat based algorithms, what logical base do we have to claim that shutting down a meat based algorithm is immoral?
We have a practical reason to claim such a thing, thus it will be claimed.

>>858933
Law arises when people decide to give up their rights to ensure that others do not impose their rights on them. They decided as a group that their society is better off without a certain action. Whether they're "special" or meat machines.

>>853414
Consciousness is an electrical system. Any experience you've had or can remember can be represented by a pattern of electrical impulses traveling through your nervous system.

Please don't confuse this as a belittling statement meant to diminish the significance of the human experience. Just because something is composed of matter and energy does not make it any less wonderful and complex.

>>853414
>Today I've spent few hours thinking about consciousness in a philosophical way just reading multiple artistic opinions after all.

>But here it is guys my verdict I believe 100% I am right.

>>858981
>Having your feelings hurt isn't the same as people dying from superstitious beliefs.

Dehumanization is not simply "having your feelings hurt", it's the first step in justification for mass-murder. History shows that when human life is reduced to simple statistics it suddenly becomes very easy for bureaucracy minded technocrats to order it's destruction.

>>859012
>Magic is supernatural as opposed to natural.
Supernatural is another word I have issue with.
How can we define something as being beyond nature when we cannot even define the boundaries of nature?
If we don't know the limits of nature then declaring something to be "supernatural" simply because it disagrees with orthodox understandings of nature is pretty silly.

I get the idea of declaring a concept to be wrong.
I do not however get the idea of declaring a concept to be supernatural and therefore wrong.

>>859151
So convenience over reason then?

>>859173
Law is entirely irrelevant to the issue of ethics.

>>859330
But humans are resources. Only commies who throw away all notions of efficiency expect people to die for an ideology.

>but my evil people

It is the drive that gets people killed, not the lack of caring. The idea of the consciousness and materialism are very recent compared to the start of killing, which has been done far before our ancestors developed languages.

Also,
>history
>technocrats

Are you really trying to do the same thing as the christians, saying that we can't have morality without god?

>>859389
>Law doesn't have anything to do with morality

You're kidding, right? Where does law come from? Is your answer going to be some kind of magic?

And why has the discussion on the other end gotten so sloppy?

>>859385
>he doesn't know about the utility of the closed world assumption
Why pretend you're more reasonable than the other side?

>>859330

Get a grip man. Some of the worst mass killings in history have been based on differences over superstition. Simply saying "what you believe supports mass murder" is bullshit tier.

More importantly it has no relevance to whether it is true or not.

>>859410
>But humans are resources. Only commies who throw away all notions of efficiency expect people to die for an ideology.
As long as human resources are being processed, consumed and disposed of in an efficient manner everything is fine though right?

>Are you really trying to do the same thing as the christians, saying that we can't have morality without god?
I don't know. I used to believe that God was entirely irrelevant and unnecessary to morality but I'm increasingly beginning to believe that maybe they're right and we actually do need God because the alternative seems to be leaving ethics in the hands of people like you that see humans as resources to be consumed.

>Is your answer going to be some kind of magic?
No my answer is going to be that law comes from government dictate, and morality is an entirely separate issue. If the law and morality are equivalent then that would mean there is no such thing as an immoral law.

>>859380
>How can we define something as being beyond nature when we cannot even define the boundaries of nature?

Exactly. So stop making up stuff without evidence just because it is beyond, current human knowledge and stop declaring there are borders to human knowledge beyond which you can just make up whatever you like without evidence.

>>859630
The fact that mass-murder has occurred as a result of disagreement over "superstition" does not negate the inherently anti-human trajectory that the pursuit of purely materialist reasoning has taken.

I am not here to defend the actions of the Spanish Fury, I'm here to question the soundness of the idea of deconstructing the concepts upon which human exceptionalism risk.

>>859653
>So stop making up stuff without evidence just because it is beyond, current human knowledge and stop declaring there are borders to human knowledge beyond which you can just make up whatever you like without evidence.

Why?
The fact that it offends your ideological sensibilities does not negate the fact that doing so often yields useful results.

If humans had waited around to invent chemistry so we could understand what fire is on a physical level before we started using fire we would never have gotten very far as a species would we?

>>859712

It has nothing to do with offending people. Why do you constantly throw around this word in such a defensive manner in a reasonable discussion unless you are rather upset yourself?

Making up superstitions without evidence is silly. And guess what? Man learned to manipulate fire by experiment, not simply making up nonsense about 'fire magic'.

>>859685
>The fact that mass-murder has occurred as a result of disagreement over "superstition" does not negate the inherently anti-human trajectory that the pursuit of purely materialist reasoning has taken.

Simply not true.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/peace-on-earth-atheism

And I noticed you neatly sidestepped the main point, which is that this has no relevance, no relevance whatsoever as to whether something is true or not.

>>859762
>Man learned to manipulate fire by experiment, not simply making up nonsense about 'fire magic'.
Are you kidding me?

>>859790
>Are you kidding me?

What? Do you think the first people to manipulate fire did it by learning how to manipulate fire or chanting to the Fire God?

Why don't you light a fire by saying a spell?

>>859769
That's an opinion piece.
The claim that "the nonreligious are more liberal and more pacifist" does not support the belief that a nonreligious world-view leads towards a liberal and pacifist world view. It could simply be the case that the liberal and pacifistic are more predisposed to a nonreligious world view.

Oh and by the way whether or not it's true is irrelevant to me, as I don't believe that all truth holds inherent value in the first place.

>>859835
>That's an opinion piece.

Based on evidence.

>Oh and by the way whether or not it's true is irrelevant to me

Which says absolutely everything anyone needs to know about everything you have said and everything you think.

>>859818
> Why do you constantly throw around this word in such a defensive manner in a reasonable discussion unless you are rather upset yourself?

Are you seriously going to turn this into a "u mad bro?" exchange?

>Do you think the first people to manipulate fire did it by learning how to manipulate fire or chanting to the Fire God?
I believe that the first people to manipulate fire did so by trial and error while chanting to "the Fire God", not by scientific experiment.

The fact that there was a belief in "fire gods" in the first place shuts down your entire argument that man's superstitions played no part in the historical use of fire .

>>859856
>Based on evidence.
Based upon a statistical fallacy and wishful thinking. It's not very becoming for someone claiming to be a rationalist to drop all pretense of rationality the moment you smell theistic ichor in the water.

>Which says absolutely everything anyone needs to know about everything you have said and everything you think.
Don't be butthurt anon.

>>859872
>I believe that the first people to manipulate fire did so by trial and error

So rudimentary experiment.

>while chanting to "the Fire God"

which pretty obviously didn't help.

>The fact that there was a belief in "fire gods" in the first place shuts down your entire argument that man's superstitions played no part in the historical use of fire .

Nope.

>>859899

You've just admitted that everything you say is bearing false witness, I think there are some religions that are against that. I hope you don't subscribe to one of them and are trying to cover it by calling me 'butthurt' in the same way you have been trying to cover your tracks by declaring everyone that disagrees with you to find you views 'offensive', rather than just, well, a little bit silly.

>>859935
>so rudimentary experiment
Calling trial and error rudimentary experiment makes about as much sense as calling alchemy rudimentary chemistry.

>which pretty obviously didn't help.
How is it obvious?
I can make the hypothetical claim that creating abstract figures that can be appealed to for aid provides the illusion of control, which encourages experimentation with highly dangerous natural phenomenon that it would be more immediately sensible to avoid.

>You've just admitted that everything you say is bearing false witness,

I did no such thing. I simply stated that the truth can often be irrelevant. I called you butthurt because you were obviously offended that I don't think pursuit of Truth is an inherently valid goal.

>>860026
>Calling trial and error rudimentary experiment makes about as much sense as calling alchemy rudimentary chemistry.

Nope. Trial and error can be very useful.

>How is it obvious?

Unless you are suggesting he fire gods magicked up fire for them.....

>I did no such thing

Right here >>859835

> I simply stated that the truth can often be irrelevant.

And there you go again. Admitting to bearing false witness. Satan will be pleased with you.

Good night, anon.

>>860049
>trial and error can be very useful
So can superstition.

>Unless you are suggesting he fire gods magicked up fire for them.....
I made it perfectly clear what I am suggesting, superstition provides a useful rudimentary model upon which eventual greater understanding can be built. The fact that you and many other "science" minded people not only reject this but leap to ridicule those that state this is indicative that it is pursuit of ideology that motivates you and not pursuit of truth.

>>860026
>alchemy rudimentary chemistry.
Alchemy as it was studied historically was in fact rudimentary chemistry. While they were mistaken about quite a bit (similar to chanting to the Fire Gods) they isolated elements and sumarized reactions that formed the initial basis for chemical exploration (comparable to the ritual for summoning fire involving kindling, fuel, and everything else that actually allows fire to burn). The word "chem-istry" has its roots in "al-chem-y" for this very reason.

The two situations are actually very similar, so it's good you brought then up. You light are fire with a lighter today because the extraneous baggage of the ritual to the gods of fire have been thrown out and there is only focus on the material portion that is actually relevant. But is the world culture going to collapse because Sekhmet isn't getting her cut anymore?

>>860221
Yes my comparison between alchemy and chemistry was deliberate, as the world-view we call superstition should be considered an earlier model of science.

I understand why we we should throw away the extraneous baggage when it comes something as relatively simple as fire, but when it comes to more sophisticated concepts that have so far defied comprehensive scientific modeling I don't understand the great impetus to socially pressure people to do so.

Superstition and instinct has served our species well for much longer than science ever has, so we should be hesitant to abandon it simply because it has become unfashionable.

>>860334
>as the world-view we call superstition should be considered an earlier model of science.
The superstition was not early science, what it facilitated was early science. Calling upon the gods did nothing (yeah yeah, *tips fedora*, we know) but learning what the god "liked" in their "ritual" was. At best, they were training wheels, and while training wheels have their time and place a bike is still limited while they are attached.

If people choose to believe in stuff like that when it's harmless, again that is fine. Maybe someone is vaguely deist or pantheist and finds some kind of spiritual beauty to the universe, maybe they're a poorly informed neopagan who sacrifices raw vegetables to a god of cooked meat while simultaneously worshipping a bitter rival god from a rival culture. It it isn't hurting anyone, great. But in terms of actually understanding the universe, thst should be put aside when it causes an interference. If that same pantheist is driven to learn more about the universe because of the vague beauty, great, but the neopagan who tried to feed carnivorous animals vegetables because of the their beliefs is doing harm. These are extreme examples, but the heir hey illustrate the point that at some level personal belief needs to be secondary to external reality, verified using the best tools we have availiable. Historically, that has been the material portion of any belief system that has actually been effective, whether directly or indirectly invoked, and I do not see the problem with embracing.

>>860409
I should clarify that I misspoke when I called it an "early model of science" when I should have said was an earlier model of epistemology. I was in a bit of a rush when I submitted that post.

>But in terms of actually understanding the universe, that should be put aside when it causes an interference.

I agree but as counter-intuitive as it sounds we should be open to the possibility that our science based model of epistemology can cause interference with understanding the universe as well. Science is not the universe, science is a tool we have constructed to better understand the universe. It is a more sophisticated tool than superstition and intuition but it's still just a tool, and just because we have access to sophisticated tools doesn't mean that simple tools suddenly lose their value. Just because your GPS contradicts your compass doesn't inherently mean the compass is wrong.

>>853463
whats your point...

>>859385
>we're just atoms man, everything is futile and dead and useless
Moron. The fact that we work a certain way does not take away our ability to experience. "Shutting down a meatsack" is shutting down something that is self aware and wants to live, why the fuck would you claim there's nothing immoral about that?