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What is Consciousness?

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Interbane

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What is Consciousness?

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I've been itching to reply to a philosophical article I read last week, but haven't had the time. I'll do it later in this thread. For now, perhaps someone else can help me with something. Philosophical Naturalists keep ascribing to a model of consciousness that smells of supernaturalism, but I can't see where or how. I think what's going on is there is a misunderstanding of higher order referents. The model is Panpsychism,

The other models of consciousness are dualism, idealism, and physicalism(emergentism). Panpsychism is closer to physicalism than the other two. I'm trying to figure out how it's different than physicalism. A panpsychist apparently thinks there is mind everywhere. It's Deepak Chopra territory. But every scientist I read sounds like a physicalist. To see what I'm talking about, read here and here.

We've discussed consciousness before on this site here, here and here. The last one is a discussion of Sam Harris' book The End of Faith, Chapter 7.

Anyone interested enough to dig into the topic of consciousness and give me their thoughts?
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Robert Tulip

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Re: What is Consciousness?

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Consciousness
Interbane, I would like to examine this statement from the Argument against Panpsychism article you linked at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/#5 : “As we examine ever smaller, more basic units of the physical world, it seems harder and harder even to imagine that such things have any properties that go beyond those ascribed to them by the physical theories which are, after all, the only reason we have to believe in them.”

Firstly, I do not accept panpsychism as a viable hypothesis. Consciousness is an emergent function of deliberate intention. When an amoeba deliberately moves towards or away from light as an instinctive result of genetic sensitivity, it has the first germ of consciousness. When the internet holds and moves vast quantities of information, it has no consciousness, because a machine lacks the capacity to make a decision. When an atom or a star moves, it has no mind.

But now looking at the specific claims in the quoted sentence, are our physical theories really the only reason to believe in the existence of subatomic particles? Ancient Greek philosophers believed in atoms on the basis of logic, the argument that matter must be formed from constituent units. Such a logical argument is not quite the same thing as a physical theory. Belief in the existence of space and time as necessary conditions of experience is not quite the same thing as believing in them on the basis of physical theories.

The quoted sentence therefore ascribes greater power to physical theories than is fully reasonable. But it also does something worse, it present an argument from incredulity that the unimaginable cannot be possible. Physical theories already ascribe some very strange properties to particles which I do not pretend to begin to understand, such as Quantum superposition, which apparently holds that particles exist in all possible states at once.

My point here is that the statement “it seems hard to imagine properties beyond physical theories” may be true in the analytic sense that science cannot imagine anything it has not yet worked out how to subject to testing, but the statement also seems to suggest the bold synthetic claim that science may be approaching completeness.

I certainly do not wish to imply that atoms may have intentions, but would like to remain open to Haldane’s famous ‘queerer than we can suppose’ idea. For example, here are some hypotheses that go beyond current physical theories:
The ordered elegance of matter may be anthropic.
Consciousness may be a culmination of evolution as the universe represents itself in symbolic logic.
Concepts such as grace, love and beauty may reflect intrinsic properties of matter.
Resonant patterns of complexity could exist at deeper harmonic levels than science has yet discovered, framing stability through time.

I would not know how to begin to test such claims, but their possibility illustrates the risks in claiming more for scientific knowledge than is justified.
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Re: What is Consciousness?

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Robert wrote:Consciousness is an emergent function of deliberate intention.
Could you expand on what you mean by "intention"? Otherwise, it's not clear what you're saying. If an amoeba has intention, is this intention categorically different from the pathing algorithm of a drone? What is the difference, if they are both simplistic responses to external stimuli? Besides the obvious difference, I mean. Rather, does the difference mean the word "intention" applies differently? I don't think it does. I think the intention of an amoeba is the same as the intention of a drone, and the germ of consciousness is therefore within both.
Ancient Greek philosophers believed in atoms on the basis of logic, the argument that matter must be formed from constituent units.
I don't see how the ancient greek philosophers could have any evidence upon which to premise their logic. Why should matter necessarily be formed from constituent units? Such an argument would run into the issue of infinite regress, since how could it apply to the macro world, yet not to the atoms themselves? Or to the quarks, strings, etc ad infinitum? I don't think the logic behind the argument is valid. The conclusion is based on empirical findings, and that's the only way it's justified.
Concepts such as grace, love and beauty may reflect intrinsic properties of matter.
These concepts refer to subjective judgements. If they are properties of matter, they are secondary at best, akin to color, taste, smell. The problem is these concepts are higher order patterns of secondary characteristics. Perhaps tertiary properties, far removed from anything objective.

This is the direction panpsychism goes. The idea is that consciousness is an intrinsic property of matter. But then, even consciousness is a state of being that is one layer removed from qualities it perceives. Is it then a quaternary property? It is removed to the fourth order from being Objective, and it could be argued that that is the entire spectrum. Not that this spectrum gives us any good understanding of what consciousness actually is.
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Re: What is Consciousness?

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A very recent (and if proven in general, not just in the very limited way mentioned in the article) development seemed to show that Crick's theory on consciousness being "merely" a synthesis of the various sensory experiences and memories holds quite a bit of water... The New Scientist article, as per other quotations in other press were quite interesting... especially as this moves consciousness very much toward the realm of neurophysiology, i.e. makes it quite "tangible" as a particular wiring in the brain.
It is interesting how little echo it produces, as it really removes a lot of mysticism (and worse) that often veils the subject matter...
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Re: What is Consciousness?

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That's a great article, thanks. An excerpt:

When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during two days of experiments.

To confirm that they were affecting the woman's consciousness rather than just her ability to speak or move, the team asked her to repeat the word "house" or snap her fingers before the stimulation began. If the stimulation was disrupting a brain region responsible for movement or language she would have stopped moving or talking almost immediately. Instead, she gradually spoke more quietly or moved less and less until she drifted into unconsciousness. Since there was no sign of epileptic brain activity during or after the stimulation, the team is sure that it wasn't a side effect of a seizure.
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