For me it means something like the logging to memory of sensory inputs. — Isaac

So my computer logging the keyboard inputs into temporary memory then reproducing them on the screen makes it conscious? Also, if someone lost the ability to store short/long term memories that makes him unconscious? I doubt either of those statements are true.

That's not the point. Your argument is that science cannot say what it says about consciousness — Isaac

The evidence we have is that consciousness arises when certain biological processes are present
We don't have evidence it ONLY arises when certain biological processes are present

Describing means to put into other words to make more clear. At the moment we've been give 'subjective experience which is no more clear. — Isaac

I've already told you that consciousness and "subjective experience" are things you can't define further. I ask you to define the word "Shape" for example. You understand as well as I do what subjective experiences mean (hopefully), it's what you're having right now. What you're having right now may be caused by the logging of memory or whatever but that doesn't mean it is the only way it can arise.

So my computer logging the keyboard inputs into temporary memory then reproducing them on the screen makes it conscious? — khaled

Please see my response to Coben above to save me rewriting the same response. I'm getting lazy writing out the full description of what I take conciousness to mean and have ended up confusing people. My apologies for that.

if someone lost the ability to store short/long term memories that makes him unconscious? — khaled

Logging and storing are two different things. Memory is not like a hard drive. A lot of the confusion around consciousness, I think, arises from this. The human brain is really, really complex, more than we might even be capable of ever grasping, but this doesn't mean that something non-physical is going on, nor that we can't generalise.

We don't have evidence it ONLY arises when certain biological processes are present — khaled

No, nor can we ever possibly get any such thing. There's nothing special about consciousness in that respect. Any time we notice any causal correlation with anything else, we can't determine that it is not also causally correlated with some other thing. Not without having tested all things.

I've already told you that consciousness and "subjective experience" are things you can't define further. I ask you to define the word "Shape" for example. — khaled

But it's easy to define 'shape'. I use the word in a consistent enough set of real word circumstances for you to understand the 'rule' about what the word does. It's you here who is trying to use the word 'consciousness' outside of an actual need to describe something.

It is a bit, but not why this leads to awareness. It seems to me this doesn't need consciousness. And it's not consciousness - or? - that drives the groove making in the neurons. It seems to me this could simply be like a very complicated version of drops on window turning into little streamlets. It happens, where does the awareness pop out from?

But we never actually see it working, because we're never outside of it - we only ever look through it, and with it, but not at it.

We don't notice that, and we don't usually need to notice that - but when we're discussing 'philosophy of mind' (as distinct from cognitive science or even psychology) then we had better notice it - otherwise we're not really coming to grips with the nature of the subject. — Wayfarer

Granting for the sake of argument that we do not notice that "we never actually see it working, because we're never outside of it - we only ever look through it, and with it, but not at it." Are you saying that we cannot notice it? If we can notice it, how would we know we are really noticing it and what would noticing that tell us?

If we can notice that we simply cannot notice the working of intelligence there is one explanation that seems to be most plausible: if, ontologically, the working of intelligence is the neural activity of the brain, and we obviously cannot notice neural activity; then why would it be a surprise that we cannot notice the working of intelligence?

On the other hand, if the working of intelligence ontologically consists in thoughts and associations, processes which we can notice, then what would it mean to say that we cannot notice the working of intelligence? That would then be a false statement, no?

So, what is it according to you: the "working of intelligence" consists in neural activity which we obviously cannot perceive (notice) directly in vivo, or it consists in thoughts and associations, which we often don't, but can if we try to, notice?

If, according to you, it is neither of these, but something else, then what could this "something else" be? And what use could it be, and what conclusions could we draw from it, if we cannot even notice it and examine it?

"Pouring from the empty into the void"?

Please see my response to Coben above to save me rewriting the same response. I'm getting lazy writing out the full description of what I take conciousness to mean and have ended up confusing people. My apologies for that. — Isaac

I read that already. So if I made a self teaching AI that keeps strengthening the chances it does a certain action based on a past history of whether or not that action succeeded that AI is conscious?
So all deep learning AI is conscious?

but this doesn't mean that something non-physical is going on, nor that we can't generalise. — Isaac

No one has suggested something non physical is going on in the brain.

we can't determine that it is not also causally correlated with some other thing. Not without having tested all things. — Isaac

But in other areas of the sciences we have tested MANY MANY things before we said something is necessary for something. In the case of consciousness, we haven’t tested anything (unless you define it as strengthening of neural networks but as I’ve said no one defines it that way)

But it's easy to define 'shape' — Isaac

Could you please do so then?

I use the word in a consistent enough set of real word circumstances for you to understand the 'rule' about what the word does — Isaac

I do the same with “subjective experiences” or so I hope.

It's you here who is trying to use the word 'consciousness' outside of an actual need to describe something. — Isaac

I am describing the property of having subjective experiences... I don’t get why you keep accusing everyone who disagrees with you with implying something mystical or sublime or anything like that. You and I both know what subjective experiences are. You contend that they ARE the logging of memory which I very much disagree with. I think they may be CAUSED by the logging of memory not that they are it. I don’t understand how it makes sense to say they are it.

Are you saying that we cannot notice it? If we can notice it, how would we know we are really noticing it and what would noticing that tell us? — Janus

Consider the amount of work Kant had to do, to arrive at his conception of 'the nature of reason'. A great deal of that work was in determining, by reason, the constituents of conscious experience, which as we both know, entails a great deal of detailed and demanding argumentation, and which hitherto had never really been stated or made explicit in the Western philosophical tradition. Something similar could also be said about Husserl's phenomenology 'which is based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events ("phenomena") as they are perceived or understood in the human consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness.'

So the fact that 'we don't or can't notice' the role of the subject in the foundation of experience, and the significance of that, is actually not a trivial matter. I mean, it's not obvious, and stating it is not stating a truism.

Now you might not have been paying attention but what lead to the comment of mine that you're criticizing, was this:

If we want to know why consciousness arose, and by 'why' mean to find a necessary and sufficient set of causes, then we must look to physical chains of events and eliminate each until the phenomena is no longer present. That is an empirical investigation, not a philosophical one. — Isaac

We have had a back and forth since then - I have been arguing, along the lines of the Chalmer's 'hard problem', that consciousness has an ineluctably subjective aspect which can never be satisfactorily accounted for in purely objective terms. I also introduced Nagel's argument which elaborates a similar point. But the response to these was that: these are not arguments, this is 'word salad', this makes no sense. Which kind of supports my point, I would have thought.

There's also a well-known Schopenhauer passage from WWR which makes the same point. He says 'materialism is the philosophy of one who forgets to take account of himself', on the basis that:

Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this...can leave nothing to be desired. But all this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Whereas, most modern realists presume that the reality is already existing or present in the so-called 'external domain' and that we are merely the consequence of some physical process that exists within it.

Not without having tested all things. — Isaac

Despite the convenient shorthand, we don't really have a 'memory' like a hard drive part of our brain, but rather memory is like the strengthening or weakening of neural networks, such that certain inputs are more likely to trigger certain responses next time. We usually experience this as recollection.

Let me throw out a couple of cautions in response to the above, not that I fully understand logging. First I'll start off with a specific. I find most people talk about neural networks and it seems to be at least a lay assumption that it is in these that consciousness arises or that consciousness is a facet of these. In the 90s and then more in the 2000s neuroscientists began to find that glial cells were more than structural and now seem to play a role in intelligence. A kind of slower parallel system to the neurons. Perhaps consciousness arises there. Who knows. Perhaps the patterns in the neural networks affect content, part of content, cognitive functions, but it's glial cells or glial cells, or, well, something else that causes or is consciousness.

I think there is often a conflation of cognitive functions and consciousness. Sometimes it is thought that consciousness is one function of brains (often neuronal networks). But perhaps it is not a function.

Humans have a history of granting consciousness (and various functions) to life forms that are like is, and this only after great resistence. Up to the 70s granting animals consciousness was actually dangerous for your career in science. We had it and for all we knew animals were machines. Then slowly - and I have wondered if perhaps having more women in science was a factor - the default position shifted to where it ought to have been, that they were conscious - perhaps not to the same degree (I think it might be a category error to think of consciousness in terms of degree) or kind. If one looks into the research into plant intelligence you can see that there is a cusp phenomenon, that some scientists are starting to think plants may be or are conscious - they should nerve system like responses, they learn, they adapt, they communicate with each other, they make choices (or they 'make choices') but all at rather complicated levels, though often, but not always, slower than us. (note much of this would be cognitive functions, if they are, but might have nothing to with consciousness. Intelligence and consciousness might not even correlate.)

Given that we know about the huge bias we have had and of course it is easier to study consciousness in creatures that can give verbal feedback I think we should be cautious about assuming we know where consciousness arises and does not, cautious about the conflate of cognitive functions and consciousness, and cautious about assuming that complexity is necessary for consciousness. That it is necessary for cogntive functions seems a much stronger conclusion. For example consciousness could simply be a quality of matter, but organizsations of matter and certain kinds of complexity give rise to cognitive functions, and so some matter acts in the world, has goals and reactions, memory, rationality, learning processes, etc.

So despite not yet getting your logging based explanation, I am poised (lol) to throw out my cautions.

So if I made a self teaching AI that keeps strengthening the chances it does a certain action based on a past history of whether or not that action succeeded that AI is conscious?
So all deep learning AI is conscious? — khaled

Probably, yes. As I've said a dozen times, it depends on your definition of consciousness. Your definition seems to be "has a property which I personally feel but which cannot be measured in others"
By that definition we can't possibly know if a computer is conscious. We can't possibly know if my own fingernail is conscious, we can't know if anything is conscious because our inability to know is built into the definition. That we can't know is not inductive knowledge, it is etymology.

But in other areas of the sciences we have tested MANY MANY things before we said something is necessary for something. In the case of consciousness, we haven’t tested anything — khaled

Of course we've tested hundreds of things, using the extremely common definition of consciousness that is something like "responds to stimuli in such a way as to give the impression that the response itself is being sensed, rather than just the initial sensation". In humans we use self-reporting to verify this, in other animals, or AI we might use observation of behaviour. I don't understand why you seem so sure that everyone just has your personal feelings about subjective experience, but hasn't a clue what's going on when observing others.

But it's easy to define 'shape' — Isaac


Could you please do so then? — khaled

Not all definitions are verbal. I would have to give you a number of examples of where I use the word shape and eventually you would pick up the 'rule' as to how it's used. It is evidently a perfectly good method because we all use 'shape' in a reasonably well understood manner. It has not worked with 'subjective experience' or consciousness' , otherwise we would not be having this discussion, Dennet would not have written his book, Nagel would not have written his book. Have you noticed the distinct lack of books about what 'shape' really is, and mysterious a topic is captured by it?

I am describing the property of having subjective experiences... I don’t get why you keep accusing everyone who disagrees with you with implying something mystical or sublime or anything like that. — khaled

You are describing something which you claim cannot be measured, nor that we know the cause of. That is practically the definition of 'mystical'. You are describing something, the word for which, is the only unifying thing in this whole discussion. That is the definition of sublimation. I can't see how I could have reached anything other than those two conclusions from your definitions.

You and I both know what subjective experiences are. You contend that they ARE the logging of memory which I very much disagree with. — khaled

You've just contradicted yourself literally with neighbouring sentences.

I find most people talk about neural networks and it seems to be at least a lay assumption that it is in these that consciousness arises or that consciousness is a facet of these. — Coben

We have a huge amount of work to identify consciousness in anything like an accurate neural correlate, but the idea that consciousness is related to the neural network is certainly not a 'lay assumption'. See the work of Susan Greenfield, or Patricia Churchill, both of whom have done considerable research in this respect and yet are of this opinion. Hardly 'lay' people.

Sometimes it is thought that consciousness is one function of brains (often neuronal networks). But perhaps it is not a function. — Coben

That is up to us. "Consciousness" is whatever we use the word for in a manner whereby we can be understood. You are subliming the term.

I think we should be cautious about assuming we know where consciousness arises and does not, cautious about the conflate of cognitive functions and consciousness, and cautious about assuming that complexity is necessary for consciousness. — Coben

I quite agree. So what is the best way to ensure this caution. Is it to have a series of peer-reviewed controlled trials testing each aspect with strictly defined correlates to see which show some statistically significant link? Or is it for a group of complete lay people who may know as little as nothing whatsoever about the physical brain write entire books about what they reckon consciousness is, and we sit here and discuss it as if it were fact.

Is it to have a series of peer-reviewed controlled trials testing each aspect with strictly defined correlates to see which show some statistically significant link? — Isaac

We're talking philosophy, not empirical science. To presume that you can identify a causal link between neurological activity and rational thought, already presumes a certain philosophical stance.

Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.

You can look at this as just a “puzzle” for materialism – one which might be solved by developing a complex functional analysis of mental states, or by framing materialism in terms of the concept of “supervenience” rather than identity or reduction, or whatever. Or you can see it as a very simple and straightforward statement of an objection that, while it can also be formulated in much more sophisticated and technical terms and in a way that takes account of and preempts the various objections materialists might try to raise against it, nevertheless goes to the core of the problem with materialism, and indeed shows why materialism cannot be true. — Ed Feser

These arguments are not 'lay arguments', and the subject under discussion is not necessarily one in which neuroscience must have the right answers.

This objection also applies to the attempt to find 'correlations' between neural data and rational thought; because the very attempt to say what neural data means, requires an act of interpretation, which is obviously not something present in neurological data as such. The specialist has to say what these patterns mean, and that act of interpretation is not an empirical judgement, but a rational argument.

And besides, there's also the replication crisis, which is particularly acute in just these kinds of subject matter.

To presume that you can identify a causal link between neurological activity and rational thought, already presumes a certain philosophical stance. — Wayfarer

And to presume you can't already presumes a certain philosophical stance. So what are we to do? Ignore each other and hope we go away? Or accept that we're going about the investigation from the basis of our presuppositions and not start telling the other side that they've got it wrong and don't understand the issue?

These arguments are not 'lay arguments' — Wayfarer

They are lay arguments. The people writing them are not experts in any field, that is the definition of 'lay'.

The specialist has to say what these patterns mean, and that act of interpretation is not an empirical judgement, but a rational argument. — Wayfarer

You're making assumptions about what it is to 'mean' something. Where's your evidence that 'meaning' is a rational judgment?

I think that's a false dilemma. And one thing that can be done is for people to take with a huge grain of salt assumptions, even amongst scientists, that fit with biases we have known to be there for a while in science. Paradigmatic biases. If these did not have such a strong unraveling history, acknowledged even within science, it might be another matter.

one thing that can be done is for people to take with a huge grain of salt assumptions, even amongst scientists, that fit with biases we have known to be there for a while in science. Paradigmatic biases. — Coben

Yes, probably so, but if peer-reviewed, controlled, statistically constrained investigations are going to be taken with a pinch of salt because of their potential paradigmatic bias (something I agree with entirely), then the uninformed ramblings of some philosopher are somewhere between gossip and fairy-tale in the order of how much salt to take them with.

Ignore each other and hope we go away? — Isaac

That's what you seem to have been doing. You've yet to respond to (as distinct from merely dismiss) anything I've presented.

Where's your evidence that 'meaning' is a rational judgment? — Isaac

What else could it be? Can your dog do 'brain science'? Can a cow? An elephant?

Your condescension is amusing. It's as if you naturally know that whatever kind of question this is, then it *must* be a scientific question - otherwise, how can it even be taken seriously? How could philosophy presume to put forward an argument that a scientist couldn't analyse? There must be something wrong with the argument! The hide of them, to think they could entertain a perspective that empiricism can't comprehend! :wink:

That's the same false dilemma.

and let's go back to the two experts you brought up: Patricia Churchland and Susan Greenfield. The first is a philosopher. You can imagine how her ideas would be listened to where they do not line up, or seem not to, with scientific consensus, because to them she is a lay person. Then with Susan Greenfield, a scientist, she got lambasted for her work on cellphones. And why? because money didn't like her conclusions. She got treated by some experts in her field, some no doubt brought in by the affected industries, and by experts or at least public talker types in other fields, as if she was a biased non-scientific idiot.

I can remember as a teenager trying to understand the psychiatric and medical treatement of a relative with emotional challenges. I did lay research into the physchiatric approach, found what I thought were philosophical biases and problematic ones.

One simple one was that the drug this person was given was given to this person in the context of 'this person has a chemical imbalance which leads to what I am calling here emotional challenges. I actually researched the tests they did to find this drug. Tests on both animals and humans. The testing presumed post-traumatic stress. The animals were tortured in a Pavlovian way, so that the trigger could be used to test the effectiveness of the drug. And it lowered anxiety. Ironically it also reduced the animals avoidance of the torture - which was no longer used in that stage of the testing. It would have hopped off the electified floor without the drug even though only the bell sounded.

Imagine what poor consequences that might lead to in a woman who had been raped. But that's a digression.

The drug was intended as a long term solution, not as, say, a stop gap, where the trauma was dealt with and the need for the drug might be eliminated.

I presented this via the relative to the psychiatrist and even contacted the scientists who developed the drug. (I was a precocious curmudgeon).

Needless to say my input was not respected. And yes, I understand that chemical imbalances and PTSD are not mutually exclusive, however given the treatment was as if the issue was all nature and we knew there was a nurture issue, and the drug was marketed as a treatment for nature problems, but was tested on a nurture problem and in the case of my relative it was definitely at least also a nurture issue, there were problems. And not only would different framings of the problem have different effects, but also treatments themselves should probably include different approaches.

Sure, there are people who leap to all sorts of conclusions online. But there are biases out there that intelligent people from outside a field can sometimes see. Hopefully they have some caution around being sure, unless they have stumbled upon some smoking philosophical gun.

But, no, I really don't give a rat's ass about their expertise. I tend to presume that peer reviewed results that are found to be the results in other peer reviewed research stand up just peachy. But I have often seen how the steps from the results to conclusions are often quite faulty, or fit with current models, or even outdated models.

And then when they filter into philosophy forums, people who relay 'what science shows us' add another layer that can include biases.

We are generally not communicating here with neuroscientists, say, but with people who have read some neuroscience, think they have a good sense of it and then relay that as if that must have the weight of authority.

Another example, here from physics is people who will use materialism or physicalism to rule out what gets called supernatual phenomena. IOW deduction eliminating the possilbility of certain phenomena because they are not physical. But then the word physical is a word that covers an expanding set of qualities and lacks thereof. It is not some stable set of things that are physical, nor is the quality stable, in the history of science. So what they present as deductive and to them a simple one includes for me speculation and also a lack of a perspective within the history of science. Hence I am wary of lay people's appeals to authority in relation to me another lay person, especially if it is a field I have done a lot of lay research in AND spent time mulling philosophically.

I think too often there is an undercurrent of, we must stop the barbarians who want to overthrow science or make up a bunch of poop and swing us back to the Dark Ages. Here's what science says. For me that instance when two lay people meet, and even when a scientist or other expert meets a lay person,is vastly more complicated - in part, but not only because scientists are generally not philosophers - but also because what I called a false dilemma on you part above actually can be a wide range of possible scenarios.

man I do go on these days, apologies.

Plus we shouldn’t forget that the sign on the door says ‘philosophy forum’. There are plenty of science forums, but this isn’t one.

Right. It is precisely to explore ideas and even up to and including speculating is and should be a part of what we do. In that context or course things may get utterly silly. I am not sure what the downside to that is, actually. If someone wants hard ass philosophy grounded in the latest science and monitored by experts, well they should look around at the nearest universities or try to start some kind of interdisciplinary book club and invite scientists.

"has a property which I personally feel but which cannot be measured in others" — Isaac

It’s more “the property to be able to personally feel, which cannot be measured in others for now”

By that definition we can't possibly know if a computer is conscious — Isaac

No because the statement “cannot be measured in others” doesn’t express a property of consciousness, there may come a day when we can, we just don’t have the consciousness-o-meter yet. It’s just an observation not a property of consciousness

using the extremely common definition of consciousness that is something like "responds to stimuli in such a way as to give the impression that the response itself is being sensed, rather than just the initial sensation" — Isaac

I have no idea what that even means. “The response is being sensed”. Can you define “sensed”? Because it seems to me like “sensed” = “has subjective experience” which is a phrase you refuse to acknowledge you understand yet I keep seeing you use it

Not all definitions are verbal — Isaac

So why were you repeatedly asking for a definition of “subjective experiences” when I know you know what that means (unless you’re not conscious).

It has not worked with 'subjective experience' or consciousness' — Isaac

Has it not? You haven’t even tried to have a discussion of it without a verbal definition. Imagine if a person refuses to take geometry class until the teacher defines what “shape” means verbally.

Consciousness can be said to be the capacity to feel something if you really want a verbal definition. Can your couch feel something? Can your phone feel something? Can AI feel something? These are questions we cannot answer unless we have a way to directly measure subjective experiences which we don’t. I can’t actually know if you feel something. Because you feeling something has no logical implications on your actions.

You are describing something which you claim cannot be measured — Isaac

No, I’m describing something and then saying we cannot measure it. It is not a property of said thing but an observation. It is you who chooses to read anything I say as mysticism because I don’t agree with you.

You've just contradicted yourself literally with neighbouring sentences. — Isaac

True that, excuse my silliness. What I meant was, you and I both know what consciousness feels like but not how it comes about. You contend it doesn’t “come about” of anything and IS literally the chemical reactions in your brain. I say it is a RESULT of said reactions. I cannot see how consciousness IS a chemical reaction. What is said reaction?
Chemical A (aq) + chemical B (aq) -> consciousness(?)

You've yet to respond to (as distinct from merely dismiss) anything I've presented. — Wayfarer

My response is that I don't agree. I don't agree because I think you've sublimed the term "consciousness" where it is not warranted by any real phenomena. Your response to that is just that I don't understand.

What else could it be? Can your dog do 'brain science'? Can a cow? An elephant? — Wayfarer

What? My dog can't do brain science therefore meaning must be a rational judgement? I've heard some bullshit arguments before, but you've won the prize there.

Your condescension is amusing. It's as if you naturally know that whatever kind of question this is, then it *must* be a scientific question - otherwise, how can it even be taken seriously? How could philosophy presume to put forward an argument that a scientist couldn't analyse? There must be something wrong with the argument! The hide of them, to think they could entertain a perspective that empiricism can't comprehend! :wink: — Wayfarer

Your condescension is amusing. It's as if you naturally know that whatever kind of question this is, then it *must* not be a scientific question - otherwise, how can it even be taken seriously? How could neuroscience presume to put forward an argument that a philosopher couldn't analyse? There must be something wrong with the argument! The hide of them, to think they could entertain a perspective that spiritualism can't comprehend!

Consider the amount of work Kant had to do, to arrive at his conception of 'the nature of reason'. A great deal of that work was in determining, by reason, the constituents of conscious experience, which as we both know, entails a great deal of detailed and demanding argumentation, and which hitherto had never really been stated or made explicit in the Western philosophical tradition. — Wayfarer

So are you saying that Kant was able to "notice the workings of intelligence"? Or rather is it not that he merely thought long and hard about experience and judgement and worked out the forms of experience and the categories of judgement by noticing what they necessarily appear to logically involve? In other words a process of analysis, surely based on, but not merely consisting of, "noticing".

Something similar could also be said about Husserl's phenomenology 'which is based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events ("phenomena") as they are perceived or understood in the human consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness.' — Wayfarer

It doesn't sound like you've actually studied Husserl. Otherwise you would know that the basic modus operandi of Husserl's phenomenology is his epoché, which is a bracketing of the question of the existence of any "external reality". If you think Husserl claimed that reality "consists of objects and events ("phenomena") as they are understood in the human consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness" then you have totally failed to understand what Husserl was on about. He was concerned with understanding human experience and consciousness, not with the ontological question of what is ultimately real. It is really poor form to distort and co-opt the thoughts of canonical philosophers to attempt to provide confirmation for your own biases.

So, you haven't answered the question: can we notice the working of intelligence at all, or is it just that we can notice that we cannot notice the working of intelligence? If the former, then how do you think we can do that, and how would we know we had done it? If the latter, then what would be the source of information that enables us to say anything at all about the "working of intelligence"?

Whereas, most modern realists presume that the reality is already existing or present in the so-called 'external domain' and that we are merely the consequence of some physical process that exists within it. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's one of the imaginable possibilities, and many think it is the most plausible one. You may favour the idealist possibility, but that is nothing more than a personal preference. Personally I am neutral on the issue, but I will say that from that position of neutrality the realist option certainly looks the more plausible to me, but I acknowledge the "to me" and that I may not be as unbiased as I like to think. Having said that, I would actually prefer to think the idealist option, since it is a hell of a lot more comforting, so I doubt that I am biased towards realism.

You, on the other hand, seem so biased towards the idealist view, you so much want it to be the case, that you take it for granted that those who disagree with you simply fail to understand. If that is your attitude you should forget about philosophy, stop worrying about the impossible task of rationally justifying your biases, and just commit to your Buddhist practice and see what unfolds for you.

All our practices and ideas give us different ways of knowing the world, with any one of them we know things we could not know with any of the others. So, for me knowledge is a kind of democracy; there is no hierarchy of knowledge; there is just different knowledge in different domains.

So, you haven't answered the question: can we notice the working of intelligence at all, or is it just that we can notice that we cannot notice the working of intelligence? — Janus

I do make an effort to answer your questions. Broadly speaking, I'm referring to the 'blind spot' argument, which I think has been amply illustrated in my interactions with Isaac. I'll leave it at that.

Right. It is precisely to explore ideas and even up to and including speculating is and should be a part of what we do. — Coben

There is speculation and then there is empty speculation. Any speculation which does not take into account the latest scientific results and understanding is empty speculation.

Empirical science cannot answer all questions; particularly when it comes to complex human, and even animal, behavior, but it can, and should, certainly inform more creatively imaginative understandings. Reliable predictability is possible only with subjects that are reducible to math and measure.

Yes, Of course you will "leave it there": everyone and everything that doesn't agree with you has a "blind spot"; I get that, I really do! When, oh when are you going to realize that you are basically a dogmatist?

I will add one further point - that the argument about 'ignoring consciousness' mainly arises in the context of eliminative materialism, which I was discussing at some detail in another thread on here last week. Eliminative materialism is much like, or even derived from, behaviourism, which is the attitude that, as the mind is not something that can be empirically observed, then all we can make meaningfully talk about is behavior. It's a short step from there to discussing consciousness in terms of inputs and processing.

Of course you will "leave it there": everyone and everything that doesn't agree with you has a "blind spot"; I get that, I really do! — Janus

Your qiuestions are simply too tedious and often accusatory. I try and spell things out, and then I'm constantly accused of 'not answering the question' or 'changing the subject'. Life's too short. Besides the issue in this thread is black and white, and if you can't see it, it's because you're only interested in taking shots at me. Anyway. the work week begins, have a good one, I'll log out for the day.

It's a short step from there to discussing consciousness in terms of inputs and processing. — Wayfarer

That's a complete misrepresentation of physicalism. It does not deny the existence of emotion and creativity. The physicalist philosophers are not as stupid as you think they are; and you would discover that if you actually read their works instead of polemical reviews of them.

I'm not interested in :taking shots at you" just for the sake of it, but in order to "wake you from your dogmatic slumbers".

The physicalist philosophers are not as stupid as you think they are; — Janus

In this thread, I have been responding to a position which says that. You're only reading half the conversation. Read what I was responding to.

If you think Husserl claimed that reality "consists of objects and events ("phenomena") as they are understood in the human consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness" then you have totally failed to understand what Husserl was on about. — Janus

The top paragraph of the SEP entry on phenomenology is:

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions.

Which is exactly how I understand it, and the basis on which I'm arguing.

In this thread, I have been responding to a position which says that. You're only reading half the conversation. Read what I was responding to. — Wayfarer

A position which says what? I have read the whole conversation; what part do you think I have missed?

Which is exactly how I understand it, and the basis on which I'm arguing. — Wayfarer

And which is about consciousness insofar as it is experienced and analyzed, and says nothing at all about what reality consists in.

A position which says what? I have read the whole conversation; what part do you think I have missed? — Janus

If we want to know why consciousness arose, and by 'why' mean to find a necessary and sufficient set of causes, then we must look to physical chains of events and eliminate each until the phenomena is no longer present. That is an empirical investigation, not a philosophical one. — Isaac

So - this is a basically physicalist account, is it not? Would you agree with it? The objections I brought up were based on David Chalmer's 'Hard Problem' paper, Thomas Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos', and generally from other sources, such as Kant and Schopenhauer. The response to that, was that none of this constituted an argument, that it was meaningless 'word salad', that 'the ramblings of philosophers' have no relevance to the problem, which can only be solved by scientific means, within the physicalist frame of reference.(Furthermore, none of those responses conveyed any familiarity with the topic, or with the sources I mentioned.) From your previous remarks, I don't think you do agree with the physicalist approach, but that when I criticize it, you take the opportunity to criticize my posts. Fair enough?