Why does the question of consciousness seem so obvious but remain "A great mystery"

Dale Petersen

I can't put it in a way that doesn’t seem egotistical, but I have for a long time considered the problem of awareness, elementary honestly.
I still see people who I consider to be otherwise great thinkers seemingly come up short-handed with this answer.

Almost all attempts at this question seem to miss the mark by a huge margin.

So I do what I normally do and seek to prove my self wrong. But so far my answer to this question seems to hold extremely well. I would like to welcome you to read my hypothesis & uncover any holes in my reasoning. I have written it out below. Hopefully, something can come of this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is Consciousness?

The question of consciousness is considered one of the great mysteries of our time.
We expect the answer to this might come from advancements in neuroscience, or some say religion answers this. But have we been looking in the wrong places?

This is not something you can answer by looking at the physical brain, and certainly, religion is no help. I suggest you can completely uncover this with a series of thought experiments & deductive reasoning, nothing else is required, only by asking the right questions, & looking in the right places.

Here are 2 examples that themselves: all that is required to discover the answer to “What is consciousness”.

Thought experiment 1

Imagine now you fall ill to a strange virus, you lose the ability to see, also you lose your sense of touch, taste and smell.
You no longer feel hunger, emotion, or anything at all.
You would be left with only your memories that you're forced to reflect on, as your mind can do nothing else. But say then the virus erases your memory, then what is your mind? How conscious are you? We would not consider these things on their own part of consciousness but when removed so is then awareness. No other factors come into play.

Even if you are alive you are in no part conscious without all these things. This clearly shows that what our mind experiences as consciousness is an emergent property of our brains structure, its inputs and the ability to process these. Exactly like a computer.

Thought experiment 2

We know the stories of religion, you die, you join your loved ones in heaven or banished to hell for eternity for blasphemy.
The thought is your soul/mind leaves your body, and that this is what it means to be dead. I don’t know any religious person who thinks we don’t experience this afterlife, they would all agree we are aware or in other words conscious of this process.

We do however know consciousness is affected physically, with psychedelics for example, or alcohol, these affect different parts of your brain & your consciousness.

We know that brain injuries affect consciousness, depending on what’s been damaged in the brain, you may lose your ability to remember the short term, you might just be shorter tempered or become hyper-emotional, you can lose your ability to feel, even including emotions.

We know when the brain is affected so is our consciousness but miraculously, when we die & our entire brain fails, and no longer functions its thought our mind remains unchanged, unaffected as it passes into the afterlife. The ridiculousness of this idea seems monumental.

There is nothing un-materialistic about consciousness, just the remarkable emergent property of billions of years of evolution resulting in more complex & aware life on earth.

Every single measurable factor points to the same conclusion.

We know for certain 2 things.

1, The mind & brain are not separate but the same thing.
2, Remove all the inputs to the brain & you are only left with memories, which are just the results of inputs. Remove that & you are left with nothing which can be discerned as a mind or consciousness.

Conclusion: The Mind/Soul/Consciousness is the effect on potentials in the brain from its inputs.

It is the combination of these 2 things only. Remove just one or the other & consciousness no longer exists & therefore is its core.

Jack Cummins

↪Dale Petersen

But you have not explained how or why consciousness came into being in the first instance. I think it is a matter of not just connecting it to the physical which is the puzzling factor, but understanding the source. Obviously, human beings are not the only beings with consciousness of any kind because it exists in some way in the wider spectrum of all living forms. As far as I can see, we need to understand it in its evolutionary context, and in specific human consciousness.

Dale Petersen

↪Jack Cummins

Hi Jack, as I said above, "There is nothing un-materialistic about consciousness, just the remarkable emergent property of billions of years of evolution resulting in more complex & aware life on earth."

Awareness would have been a gradient of becoming more aware as it was advantageous to be so while evolving since first life, which would have started with the most absolute basic level on awareness, maybe just one input & with an action potential. Technically, any reaction to an action is the most basic aliment of consciousness. Brains are just a billion time more complex.

Does that answer what you're saying? Sorry if I misunderstand your argument.

I don't think it is necessary to explain how life first formed to answer this question.

T Clark

You would be left with only your memories that you're forced to reflect on, as your mind can do nothing else. But say then the virus erases your memory, then what is your mind? How conscious are you? We would not consider these things on their own part of consciousness but when removed so is then awareness. No other factors come into play.

Even if you are alive you are in no part conscious without all these things. — Dale Petersen

This doesn't seem obvious to me. How do you know?

We know when the brain is affected so is our consciousness but miraculously, when we die & our entire brain fails, and no longer functions its thought our mind remains unchanged, unaffected as it passes into the afterlife. The ridiculousness of this idea seems monumental. — Dale Petersen

I don't have any belief in an afterlife, but the idea does not seem ridiculous to me.

There is nothing un-materialistic about consciousness, just the remarkable emergent property of billions of years of evolution resulting in more complex & aware life on earth...

The mind & brain are not separate but the same thing. — Dale Petersen

I think this is clearly wrong. When I talk about brains, I use words such as "neuron" and "synapse." When I talk about consciousness I use words such as "thought" or "awareness." Let's try another example - does it make sense to talk about living organisms as something different from the physical and chemical actions and reactions that make them up? To me it seems clear that it does. Again, with physics we talk about electrons and molecules. With life we talk about cells and tissues.

I think you've misunderstood what people call the "hard problem of consciousness." For many, the unjumpable chasm is that conscious experience is qualitatively different from all other phenomena and is not explainable by any current science. I disagree with that. I agree with you that consciousness is no big deal, nothing special, although there is a lot we don't know about it. My reasons for believing that seem to be different than yours.

Dale Petersen

↪T Clark

Thanks for your response,

To answer your first question, I'll ask you that question, what would your mind/consciousness be without these things? Even if I missed an obscure sense we have, the same logic applies then to that. The point is you removing all inputs to the brain & their effect, so what is then your mind? I argue nothing. Try to imagine it.

To your second point. To reframe the thought, If you receive a brain injury that renders you unable to feel emotions, why would you then when your entire brain fails aka dies, would this ability come back to you, or would you then live in the afterlife emotionless forever. Basically, the point is everything we can attribute to our soul/mind/consciousness is dependent on certain regions of the brain, saying that there is nothing outside it that is part of the soul/mind/consciousness whatever would like to call it. Nothing un-materialistic.

I think part of my argument is that there is nothing special about consciousness, nothing that sets it apart from any other physical thing other than its great complexity. It seems to disguise its self that way.
Just a super complex series of dominoes and your finger on the first domino is the input I talk about.

does it make sense to talk about living organisms as something different from the physical and chemical actions and reactions that make it up? — T Clark

I don't quite understand this. The physical and chemical actions and reactions that make it up is all that it is. That's what it is, entirely. Unless you can show otherwise? So why would you talk about it as something separate? Because a living organism is alive but the sum of its parts is not? Is that what you're saying?

Again, with physics we talk about electrons and molecules. With life, we talk about cells and tissues. — T Clark

When we know the cells and tissues are made from electrons and molecules why would you consider them separate? Where would you draw the line. I argue there is no line to be drawn. I really hope I have not misunderstood what you're saying.

Thanks.

Pantagruel

1, The mind & brain are not separate but the same thing. — Dale Petersen

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is truly an insidious fallacy.

Even if consciousness as it is normally defined is typically a manifestation of an individual organism (or brain in your terms) there is no reason to suppose that is the limit of consciousness. There are plenty of examples of "collective" awareness, trivially in insect hive minds. And there is lots of evidence of the raw material of consciousness being transmitted through culture, and of consciousness existing really as part of a complex environmental matrix (embedded or embodied cognition). So while I agree with your position statement, what's the big mystery about consciousness, I have to take issue with your conclusion.

Dale Petersen

↪Pantagruel

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is truly an insidious fallacy. — Pantagruel

Hi Pantagruel, can you show exactly where this fallacy applies?

If you expand "mind" to include the collective cooperation between individual organisms that's fine, but the same logic applies then to that collection.

I think the limits of consciousness is shown in my argument to be the inputs, our senses. Everything which takes in information.

Hope I understand your argument properly.

Jack Cummins

↪Dale Petersen

I am probably complicating matters further, but I am wondering where the unconscious comes in. I am afraid that I am influenced by Jung, but I do see the unconscious and unconscious as interconnected. Consciousness comes from the unconscious, but I do understand if you see this as being outside your framework, because I realise that I am looking a bit outside of the usual way of seeing the philosophy of mind.

Dale Petersen

I am probably complicating matters further, but I am wondering where the unconscious comes in. — Jack Cummins

When you remove all inputs to the human brain, there is nothing to be aware of and therefore not aware/conscious, just action potentials. What would it be like to be this way. Think about it now and imagine it.

but I do see the unconscious and unconscious as interconnected. — Jack Cummins

Please elaborate, what do you mean?

T Clark

To answer your first question, I'll ask you that question, what would your mind/consciousness be without these things? Even if I missed an obscure sense we have, the same logic applies then to that. The point is you removing all inputs to the brain & their effect, so what is then your mind? I argue nothing. Try to imagine it. — Dale Petersen

I understand what you're talking about, but I disagree with what you're saying. If by destroying memory you mean removing all changes to the brain that have ever happened, then I think the person would clearly die. Otherwise, brain processing pathways would still be there. I don't know how that might show up as consciousness. Memories are not all stored in one place. They are stored throughout the brain. How do you remove them without otherwise disrupting brain function? I don't think you can.

To your second point. To reframe the thought, If you receive a brain injury that renders you unable to feel emotions, why would you then when your entire brain fails aka dies, would this ability come back to you, or would you then live in the afterlife emotionless forever. Basically, the point is everything we can attribute to our soul/mind/consciousness is dependent on certain regions of the brain, saying that there is nothing outside it that is part of the soul/mind/consciousness whatever would like to call it. Nothing un-materialistic. — Dale Petersen

You are applying the reasoning we might use in a scientific discussion to a spiritual or religious phenomenon.

I don't quite understand this. The physical and chemical actions and reactions that make it up is all that it is. That's what it is, entirely. Unless you can show otherwise? So why would you talk about it as something separate? Because a living organism is alive but the sum of its parts is not? Is that what you're saying? — Dale Petersen

One type of emergence, the type I think applies here, identifies a phenomenon, life, that arises out of lifeless matter. Life has to follow all the rules of lifeless matter, i.e. physics and chemistry, but it is not derivable from them. Here's a link to a famous paper:

https://cse-robotics.engr.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/anderson72more_is_different.pdf

I think the mind arising out of a living organism is the same thing. The mind is not the brain. They are different phenomena. They follow different rules.

When we know the cells and tissues are made from electrons and molecules why would you consider them separate? Where would you draw the line. I argue there is no line to be drawn. I really hope I have not misunderstood what you're saying. — Dale Petersen

Here's what you wrote in your opening post - "Conclusion: The Mind/Soul/Consciousness is the effect on potentials in the brain from its inputs." By your logic, that's wrong. It should be - Conclusion: The Mind/Soul/Consciousness is the effect of the motions of subatomic particles.

bert1

Almost all attempts at this question seem to miss the mark by a huge margin. — Dale Petersen

Your view is a pretty commonly held view as far as I can tell. Looks like a kind of functionalism to me.

Cassandra

wow, the stripping away of all those attributes is certainly an interesting to think about.... is that akin to death? is it death? is it like being a starfish lol ????

Psychedelics augment consciousness rather than destroy it (unless you die from an overdose) -- so I think perhaps that could be said to expose our false sense of an objective reality, rather than anything against about the problem of awareness or consciousness itself. It is still consciousness just a different plane of consciousness......

But certainly if we stripped each component away one by one (the 5 senses and the emotions) that is fascinating......

With all this though, I guess the mystery still eternally lies in the WHY though.
Even if consciousness emerges from all the components, still WHY ?
Leading us back to wonder about our origins and the purpose of complex brains and in turn consciousness emerging in form and matter..... the question of why and is there a reason or not !!!!

Maybe consciousness emerging from the brain...
Is like steam emerges from water..... fire from the scorching heat on dry wood........ the potential is always there for it to come to be..... so that brings about another thing to ponder... were all these things programmed and designed ????

So the problem of awareness and existence itself endures ! :razz:

Jack Cummins

↪Dale Petersen

I probably don't see it in exactly the same way as you do because I think that there is a whole spectrum in between consciousness and unconsciousness, with the most obvious form being dreams. Also, there are some other borderline phenomena, such as NDEs. I would not go as far as to say that they suggest life after death, but they do raise questions. Of course, the persons in question have not actually died. I see them as an interesting area of questioning and besides Jung's ideas, I do wonder about Bergson's idea of the brain as a reducing valve.

Generally, I am not sure that neuroscientists have all the answers. They may be able to link the mind to the brain, but whether this comes up with the complete answer is what I wonder about. Also, I do think that Fritjof Capra's systems view has an important contribution to make. He drew upon the cybernetic ideas of Gregory Bateson, and has argued that, 'mind is not a thing but a process- the very process of life. ..The interactions of a living organism_ plant, animal, or human_ with its environment are cognitive, or mental interactions. Mind _or, more accurately, mental process_is imminent in matter at all levels of life.'

So, really I am just saying that while the neuroscientists have made tremendous insights into the picture of human consciousness, I am not sure that they have the complete picture.

Dale Petersen

Edit

Dale Petersen

↪T Clark

I understand what you're talking about, but I disagree with what you're saying. If by destroying memory you mean removing all changes to the brain that have ever happened, then I think the person would clearly die. Otherwise, brain processing pathways would still be there. I don't know how that might show up as consciousness. Memories are not all stored in one place. They are stored throughout the brain. How do you remove them without otherwise disrupting brain function? I don't think you can.
— T Clark

Reading into this too much I think, the point is to remove it as a variable because experience comes from inputs to the brain. So it's not important how you would do it but more so what it would mean to be without it. it just simplifies the argument. As you don't have memories without inputs, so it's just really a simplification of the argument because it must logically follow anyway.

You are applying the reasoning we might use in a scientific discussion to a spiritual or religious phenomenon.
— T Clark

I honestly don't see why that’s an issue. But I was using this argument to pre-empively refute the Soul & mind are separate arguments.

I think the mind arising out of a living organism is the same thing. The mind is not the brain. They are different phenomena. They follow different rules.
— T Clark

So would you agree that is like saying the code of a program/Mind follows different rules to the hardware/brain which runs it? if you consider this an accurate analogy then I agree, but why does this go against the proposed theory?

Thanks.

Dale Petersen

↪Cassandra

Psychedelics augment consciousness rather than destroy it (unless you die from an overdose) -- so I think perhaps that could be said to expose our false sense of an objective reality, rather than anything against about the problem of awareness or consciousness itself. It is still consciousness just a different plane of consciousness...... — Cassandra

You are not wrong but I was more pointing out the connection between our brain and the mind showing it to be the same thing by using variables. Like removing a part of the brain responsible for hearing & losing your hearing.

With all this though, I guess the mystery still eternally lies in the WHY though.
Even if consciousness emerges from all the components, still WHY ?
Leading us back to wonder about our origins and the purpose of complex brains and in turn consciousness emerging in form and matter..... the question of why and is there a reason or not !!!! — Cassandra

Why is not the right question, how is all we need to know.
I'm proposing the how is simply our minds ability to take in data through its inputs, for example, our eyes & acting on it. Thinking of our mind like a super complex series of dominos, which seems strange until you remove the inputs & everything associated with a mind disappears.

There is no designer or programmer behind our minds. Just evolution, it's very powerful.
We are in the machine learning / AI era.

The percentage of intelligence on this earth that is human is decreasing.
Is that bad or good. Who can say.

T Clark

Reading into this too much I think, the point is to remove it as a variable because experience comes from inputs to the brain. So it's not important how you would do it but more so what it would mean to be without it. it just simplifies the argument. As you don't have memories without inputs, so it's just really a simplification of the argument because it must logically follow anyway. — Dale Petersen

I disagree. I think the fact that you don't know how to remove memories or even if it can be done or what would happen if you did undermines your argument.

I honestly don't see why that’s an issue. But I was using this argument to pre-empively refute the Soul & mind are separate arguments. — Dale Petersen

You were talking about an afterlife, which is a religious concept. I see no reason to believe the objections you raise would apply to a supernatural phenomenon.

So would you agree that is like saying the code of a program/Mind follows different rules to the hardware/brain which runs it? — Dale Petersen

This probably isn't a good analogy. Let's say it is for discussion's sake. Are you saying the software is the hardware?

Dale Petersen

↪T Clark

I disagree. I think the fact that you don't know how to remove memories or even if it can be done or what would happen if you did undermines your argument. — T Clark

Honestly unsure how this detail is relevant, or consequential, but I'll answer.
You don't have to remove the memories if hypothetically a human was created suddenly with no inputs to the brain what would it be like for that person? That's the whole point of bringing up the memory thing, it was only relevant because I was using someones who had previous memories to contrast with. You could just change the argument if you like to suit this, we know people with head injuries can lose their ability to recall anything. So let's just say it was a head injury & not a virus & bam problem solved. Not that I think it was a problem anyway.

Remember I said the point is to think about what it's like without, not what it means to remove it or how to do it.

You were talking about an afterlife, which is a religious concept. I see no reason to believe the objections you raise would apply to a supernatural phenomenon. — T Clark

Okay then do you agree then with the thought experiment? That he would pass into the afterlife without the ability to feel emotion? If he was missing it before passing?
This is an argument against the afterlife, sure. But again moving away from the point of the analogy.

This probably isn't a good analogy. Let's say it is for discussion's sake. Are you saying the software is the hardware? — T Clark

Oh I understand what you are now saying.
No, they are not the same but without the hardware, you have no software.

What we are asking is, what is the software basically, that is a great question.
Which when using the analogy of hardware and software seems obvious, but not brains?
I think it's exactly the same thing.
You have inputs & the software acts on those inputs via code/Brain structure.

This also suggests this hardware & software would be at a very low level conscious & I believe yes that is the case. just much lower on the gradient of awareness, like almost the very bottom.

Pantagruel

I think the limits of consciousness is shown in my argument to be the inputs, our senses. Everything which takes in information. — Dale Petersen

Just because mental events have neural correlates doesn't mean that they are neurally caused. Embedded cognition views mental events as existing within complex systems comprised of both organism and world. Emergent properties in complex systems do not necessarily reduce simplistically to the components of those systems. Rather, the essence of an emergent property is its qualitative novelty. Yours is an argument for a biological reductionism, from which standpoint consciousness of course remains "a great mystery."

Why does the question of consciousness seem so obvious but remain "A great mystery"

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions