I suggest other participants in this discussion take a look and decide for themselves. — T Clark

I suggest you give a small, supported argument to back up your assertion, because the metaphysics taking place on your thread are in no way contradictory to anything stated here that has been supported with research. Perhaps the opposite.

How?" is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction. By produce, I mean emit, generate, or otherwise enable. Much like eyesight is produced by the brain, so too is consciousness

No one knows how, but God forbid anyone disagree that it's been proven to.

No one knows how, but God forbid anyone disagree that it's been proven to. — theRiddler

It's almost like haven't addressed this pathetic strawman, yet I know I have. And, here you are still going with it as if it is legitimate.

Yes, you not knowing how the brain produces consciousness yet insisting everyone believe it does is a strawman.

Yeah, but how do you explain the difference between someone being knocked out and someone being awake? Where is the difference? You might point the person's behavior, but I can act like I'm knocked out so how do you tell the difference between someone acting like they are knocked out and someone who is actually knocked out? And how would the person that goes from being awake, to knocked out to awake again describe the difference, and would there be a discrepancy between the two descriptions (yours and theirs), and if so why? If we can act, or lie with our actions, then there must be some difference between our behaviors and what we are presently aware (conscious) of.

One can tell if someone is unconscious if they are unresponsive. The man acting unconscious is still conscious. He wouldn’t be able to act if he was unconscious, though he may deceive us.

I agree with everything except the notion that consciousness is a silly concept. How do you explain dreams, or the fact that I can act in some way that is contrary to my present knowledge?

I don’t think the fact of being conscious is silly, but the notion of “consciousness” is. By adding the suffix “ness” to the adjective “conscious” we fashion a thing out of a descriptive term, which in my mind is an error in philosophical discussions. This is true of terms such as “awareness”, “happiness”, “whiteness”. Descriptive terms serve to describe things, but they aren’t themselves things, substances, or forces, and they shouldn’t be treated as such in any careful language.

When speaking about and analyzing things that exist, the human organism exists. This human organism is what we study and analyze to better understand his activity. “Consciousness”, however, doesn’t exist, and we should abandon the term.

Descriptive terms serve to describe things, but they aren’t themselves things, substances, or forces, and they shouldn’t be treated as such in any careful language.

When speaking about and analyzing things that exist, the human organism exists. This human organism is what we study and analyze to better understand his activity. “Consciousness”, however, doesn’t exist, and we should abandon the term. — NOS4A2

I'm actually in accord with this. It may be better to look at this in terms of function, exclusively.

Yes, you not knowing how the brain produces consciousness yet insisting everyone believe it does is a strawman. — theRiddler

The only scientifically supported assertion (mine) on this thread is not the strawman. Your attempt to claim that I have asserted that I know how consciousness is produced without question is the strawman, and it is pathetic that you keep going with it, even though I have addressed it numerous times in this thread. You're basically just a creepy little troll with no argument, and too much emotion.

I suggest other participants in this discussion take a look and decide for themselves — T Clark

Don’t you go messin’ with the laws of nature, Mister.

I would argue that phenomenology brackets both the external and the internal world as understood according to scientific naturalism, and it does so for ontological reasons, which are used to justify it’s methodology. The notion of phenomenology as introspection is a common but mistaken assumption. — Joshs

Right, but I wasn't specifically referring to introspection by "internal". (That said introspection is certainly part, and an ineliminable part, of phenomenology, as the latter also consists in reflection on experience, which would be impossible without introspection in the form of memory). What I had in mind was subjective experience.

So, the idea is that science generally brackets (leaves out of consideration) subjective experience and focuses on the objective, while phenomenology generally brackets the objective world and focuses on how we, subjectively, experience ourselves and it, ourselves in it.

If you, as Heidegger does, count phenomenology as ontology then obviously ontology is part of phenomenology. But that is a non-traditional conception of ontology.

From the perspective (and I maintain it is just a perspective) of phenomenology consciousness is prior, just because of its focus on subjective experience. From the perspective of science (and it is also just a perspective) consciousness is not prior, since it never what is being studied, because the subject of study here is simply the objects as they are encountered.

Science is not an ontology either, it is a methodology, as it makes no necessary assumptions about the independent existence of its objects.

Actually.....having thought about it overnight......if consciousness is external, then it affects the brain. If consciousness is internal, the brain is its cause but at the same time, only affects itself........

......which makes the brain affected either way, and affects being that upon which experiments are presupposed.....

(Enter silly little lightbulb thingy here) — Mww

Right, so if consciousness is thought as fundamental then the brain and its sensual body is a structure of consciousness, designed by consciousness to focus itself in order to experience otherness. Something like that, anyhow...

It's assumption all the way down, when it comes to (traditional) metaphysics, that is any absolutized claim about the nature of reality. Physicalism and idealism are two such claims.

Neuroscience is only one way of describing and viewing consciousness. I have been reading Noam Chomsky on the mind and body problem and he captures the way in which all the various terms are ambiguous, including the 'body' itself. He says that 'there is a material world, the properties of which are to be discovered, with no a priori demarcation of what will count as "body". He is pointing to the way in which even pinning down aspects of the mind to a physical body and brain rests on how the body itself is seen, with the underlying question of what is body and mind exactly?

He is pointing to the way in which even pinning down aspects of the mind to a physical body and brain rests on how the body itself is seen, with the underlying question of what is body and mind exactly? — Jack Cummins

Sure, and those are questions he can answer. I don't find them very intersting, philosophically speaking. I don't have to understand every aspect of why a table performs the way it does, metaphysically, to understand that it performs those functions quite well. Consciousness absolutely must be approached from the perspective of what we know about it, empirically, before metaphysical postulates are even remotely relevant. Or else, we'll find ourselves making claims that are absurd. "Body" is a biological term used to describe the self-contained system of structures that constitute a life-form. One of those structures is the brain, and according to everything we know in modern cog-sci, it is responsible for what we have been calling consciousness. Which, in all likelihood, is actually just a complex, computational, biological function. The data have got to be addressed at some point on this thread before I ever even think about moving to Chomsky's views on the subject.

Right, so if consciousness is thought as fundamental then the brain and its sensual body is a structure of consciousness, designed by consciousness to focus itself in order to experience otherness. Something like that, anyhow...

It's assumption all the way down, when it comes to (traditional) metaphysics, that is any absolutized claim about the nature of reality. Physicalism and idealism are two such claims. — Janus

....... No.

so if consciousness is thought as fundamental then the brain and its sensual body is a structure of consciousness, designed by consciousness to focus itself in order to experience otherness. — Janus

Yep, under the presupposition of universal consciousness, re: Anaxagoras, or universal will, re: Schopenhauer. And others, probably.

It's assumption all the way down, when it comes to (traditional) metaphysics, that is any absolutized claim about the nature of reality. — Janus

Depending on the chronology of “traditional”. Some metaphysics doesn’t make absolutized claims about the nature of reality, i.e., that there is one necessarily, isn’t a claim about its nature.

Nevertheless, I would agree metaphysics as a rational doctrine predicated on pure logic, is assumptions all the way down. The premises are assumed, or at least subjectively given, and hopefully the employment of empirical conditions for justifying the conclusions, doesn’t bite us in our smarty-pants.

Physicalism and idealism are two such claims. — Janus

Plain ol’ idealism. Idealism in and of itself, re: Berkeley. Ok, sure. Surely not though.....er....you-know-who.

Depending on the chronology of “traditional”. Some metaphysics doesn’t make absolutized claims about the nature of reality, i.e., that there is one necessarily, isn’t a claim about its nature. — Mww

True, to say that there is an absolute nature of reality, even though we cannot say what it is, doesn't seem to be an absolutist claim. Although I do wonder sometimes whether the idea is coherent. Saying no more than "it is what it is" (Biblical echoes there) seems unimpeachable.

Plain ol’ idealism. Idealism in and of itself, re: Berkeley. Ok, sure. Surely not though.....er....you-know-who. — Mww

I see Kant's idealism as a kind of (proto) phenomenology. It is Kant, as I understand it, who was first to show that absolutized claims about the nature of reality cannot hold pure rational water. We know reality only as it appears to us.

The only scientifically supported assertion (mine) on this thread is not the strawman. Your attempt to claim that I have asserted that I know how consciousness is produced without question is the strawman, and it is pathetic that you keep going with it, even though I have addressed it numerous times in this thread. You're basically just a creepy little troll with no argument, and too much emotion.

There there, buddy, you lost. But there will be more mountains to climb. Take it easy.

You speak of 'biological function' and, I am not dismissing biology. However, it is one model and way of seeing reality. To what extent can everything be reduced to this model, which is materialism. I am not advocating idealism as the opposite instead of materialism, but would suggest that reality may be larger than either model.

That is because, ultimately, all these views are models, including neuroscience, and none of these can be viewed as 'absolute reality.' I am not opposed to neuroscience because it is important but to see it as 'the Unequivocal Triumph' may be to put it on a pedestal and see it concretely, in the way 'religious' perspectives were once seen. The findings of neuroscience are important in science but may not contain all that is known about consciousness because it can describe consciousness but is not consciousness itself.

The findings of neuroscience are important in science but may not contain all that is known about consciousness because it can describe consciousness but is not consciousness itself. — Jack Cummins

In fact neuroscience cannot describe consciousness, but only brain function. Describing consciousness is the function of phenomenology.

Absolutely, and it can be asked is consciousness a matter of the brain or something more? Of course, the brain is connected to mental states but whether consciousness can be reduced to the apparatus of the brain is another matter. Humans need brains and bodies but it can be asked if they can be simplified into the reductive language and images gathered by neuroscience? Can the mind of Van Gogh, Schopenhauer, Buddha or Sartre be reduced in such a way or does consciousness itself, especially of the greatest minds, triumph above the descriptive logic of neuroscience, in bringing forth insight and understanding.

I saying no more than "it is what it is" (...) seems unimpeachable. — Janus

That, and its negation, “it couldn’t be anything other than what it is”. Both unimpeachable, in that they are tautologically true. Which makes them pretty much worthless.

Equally useless, I might add, is the worthless sophism in the form, “that there is a reality is itself an assumption”. But that’s a ‘nuther whole ball of wax, right there, best left to waste away.

I am just thinking that neuroscience is important in understanding various aspects of the mind but if it is seen as the 'absolute' picture of consciousness it would be about putting it in a box, which may mean that the full impact of consciousness in its creative sense may be lost in the picture. It may be like caging an animal and thinking that gives a true portrayal of its nature.

I know you believe that you wrote a reasoned unbiased unemotional post, but you didn’t come close to one. — Joe Mello

You may have missed the point of my later posts on this thread. Normally, I tend to ignore threads with extremist terminology, such as "unequivocal triumph". But GT mentioned "denizens of this forum" in a unflattering reference to those who do not accept his Scientism-based bible-thumping as philosophical arguments. So I tried one last time to convince him that this is not a Science forum, and that modern Philosophers are mainly focused on topics that don't lend themselves to empirical evidence. I never denigrated the work of empirical scientists. And all of my proffered "evidence" came from credentialed practitioners of various fields of science. So my comments were not in any sense anti-science, but merely pro-philosophy.. Apparently, he equates Philosophy with obsolete Religion conquered by triumphant Science..

He continued to insist "show me the evidence", yet ignored my many links to quotes by professional scientists supporting my modest comments. He didn't seem to be interested in the opinions of individual scientists. Instead, his absolute authority is capital "S" science -- as-if modern science is a monolithic institution like the Catholic Church, with canonical scriptures. Ironically, when I asked him for "book, chapter & verse" to support his "unequivocal" equivocations, he made no attempt to provide references. He seemed to equate his understanding of Science as the unquestionable gospel Truth. I still don't know where to find that Scriptural Science, where the secrets of the universe are revealed.

Others had commented on his apparent evangelical mission to propagate his canonical Truth, and to root-out unbelievers. So, I began to reflect his bullying tactics back at him. And he didn't like it at all, e.g. being treated as a naive idiot, ignorant of holy Science. Yet, he made no attempt to justify his own bragging boast of "Unequivocal Triumph" of Science over Philosophy. So, if you detected any "biased, emotional" inflections in my post, they were merely mirror images of GT's tactics, not my own. Since he is obviously attempting to convert The Philosophy Forum, into The Triumphant Science Forum, he should expect some vigorous resistance -- as Putin is getting to his invasion. Are you ready to take-up the cross of Scientism, and convert the heathens --- while remaining reasonable & unbiased & unemotional, of course? :cool:

Definition of Scientism
1 : methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist. 2 : an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scientism

What Does 'Truth' Mean To A Scientist? :
There are no absolute truths in science; there are only approximate truths. Whether a statement, theory, or framework is true or not depends on quantitative factors and how closely you examine or measure the results.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/07/13/ask-ethan-what-does-truth-mean-to-a-scientist/?sh=4391c5378206

Does Science Over-reach? :
We've all heard the phrase, "You can't argue with science." But should we take the accomplishments of science as evidence for scientism—the view that science is the best and only way to acquire genuine knowledge? Does faith in science require that we disregard all non-scientific viewpoints?
___Massimo Pugliucci, philosopher
https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/does-science-over-reach

Philosophy and Science: What Can I Know? :
Philosophy is a thorny subject. Many philosophical statements cannot be formally proven, resulting in clever but endless debates. Scientists usually shy away from such ambiguity and retreat into their safe world of perceived clarity. Nevertheless, the philosophical study of nature is the wellspring of science. Simply asking “What is a law of nature?” poses a philosophical challenge.. . . .
Paradoxically, every question answered raises more and harder questions and theories appear to be losing meaning. If asked, some scientists will admit to these shortcomings: uncertainty and ignorance are inherent and ubiquitous in science. The final blow to a clear foundation of knowledge comes from the discoveries that incompleteness and randomness lurk at the heart of mathematics.
___James B. Glattfelder, physicist turned quant, turned complexity scientist, with a pinch of data science and a philosophical bent,
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-03633-1_9

Anyone with physicalist presuppositions will say that of course it comes from the brain: where else? On the other side those who think consciousness or mind is ontologically fundamental will say that the brain is like a radio receiver; that it in some sense receives consciousness, doesn't produce it. Who's right? Who knows and how could the 'fact of the matter' ever be demonstrated? — Janus

I know. Nerurologists know. We're right. If someone states, "We need Oxygen to breath, but maybe its invisible magical unicorns that use Oxygen as a medium," They're wrong. An opinion or an introduction of something you can imagine never trumps facts.

I’ve seen people knocked out, but never a brain knocked out. People are far more than brains. — NOS4A2

When a person is knocked out, its due to brain trauma. No, you are not more than your brain.

When speaking of qualities or states of a human being, such as consciousness, happiness, sleepiness, etc. we are discussing qualities and states of the organism in its entirety, such as it exists. Since disembodied brains can neither function nor exist on their own—without blood, oxygen, the skeleton, flesh—it’s silly to say a brain can produce a quality that only an entire organism can display. — NOS4A2

I mean this with all seriousness, you need to look up some biology. Nerves are extensions of the brain through which information of the body travels. If you chop a finger off, you lose the ability to sense a finger, but you don't lose your brain or consciousness. Needing nutrients to function does not deny the brain is your source of consciousness.

You also have not provided me an alternative to your brain being your source of consciousness, backed by facts that could negate the numerous facts that point to the brain being the source of consciousness. If you can't then you stand in the position of fantasy, while I stand on solid facts.

How is one supposed to even argue with the backwards assumption that all we are is our brain. It's so patently false. Might as well argue with flat Earthers.

Describing consciousness is the function of phenomenology. — Janus

:up: Perhaps, 'describing conscious experience'?

In fact neuroscience cannot describe consciousness, but only brain function. Describing consciousness is the function of phenomenology. — Janus

Do we want to "describe" or do we want to model the causality?

And which do you think has the better hope of engaging with the causality?

Even the worst, most reductionist, most mechanical, neuroscience model is at least some kind of testable theory. (Well, until you get down to panpsychism or something that suggests no observable counterfactuals.)

But where does phenomenology connect with causality in accounting for consciousness as the phenomena it decides is its subject of study?

And don't actual neuroscientists on the whole only claim to be studying brain function or cognition - as "consciousness" is such a vague term loaded with cultural baggage?

So, the idea is that science generally brackets (leaves out of consideration) subjective experience and focuses on the objective, while phenomenology generally brackets the objective world and focuses on how we, subjectively, experience ourselves and it, ourselves in it.

If you, as Heidegger does, count phenomenology as ontology then obviously ontology is part of phenomenology. But that is a non-traditional conception of ontology.

From the perspective (and I maintain it is just a perspective) of phenomenology consciousness is prior, just because of its focus on subjective experience. From the perspective of science (and it is also just a perspective) consciousness is not prior, since it never what is being studied, because the subject of study here is simply the objects as they are encountered.

Science is not an ontology either, it is a methodology, as it makes no necessary assumptions about the independent existence of its objects. — Janus

First off, I should say that science’s conception of itself, including such things as what it does, how it differs from philosophy and what an object is, has undergone and will continue to undergo change alongside historical changes in philosophical wordviews. We can see this evolution in philosophy of science, from its faith in Baconian inductive method and cumulative progress, to Popperian falsificationism and the embrace of deductive method, to Kuhn , Feyerabend and Rouse’s postmodern relativism and rejection of falsification and the correspondence theory of truth.

In the latter philosophies of science we have something close to a phenomenological approach to science.
But let’s take the notion of objective realism that is still prevalent in the natural sciences today and compare it to a phenomenological approach. Does objective realism simply take objects ‘as they are given’ , as you say? If that were the case , there would seem to be no need for Husserl’s famous dictum countering the Kantian unknowable noumena, ‘to the things themselves’.
Objective realism doesn’t take objects as they are perceived, it takes them as preconceived according to presuppositions about objects, such as that an object is identical with itself over a certain duration. You say that science makes no necessary assumptions about the independent existence of its objects, but it does indeed do this in that it requires that objects be mathematizable. This is the fundamental basis of empirical objectivity. As Heidegger and Husserl both pointed out, only an object assumed as identical persisting over time is a mathematical object. Such identical self-persistence is assumed as independent of the relation between the object and the subject that is perceiving the object.

“A true object in the sense of logic is an object which is absolutely identical "with itself," that is, which is, absolutely identically, what it is; or, to express it in another way: an object is through its determinations, its quiddities [Weisheiten], its predicates, and it is identical if these quiddities are identical as belonging to it or when their belonging absolutely excludes their not belonging. Purely mathematical thinking is related to possible objects which are thought determinately through ideal-"exact" mathematical (limit-) concepts…”(Husserl)

Husserl argues that the self-identical object on which duration and mathematical quantification is based is transcendent to what is actually experienced; it is an idealization , a synthesis pieced together from moments of experience that never reproduce their sense identically.
What we actually perceive is not a persisting thing , but a constantly changing flow of perspectives and senses. The nature of this changing flow is only apparent once we see it as dependent on the anticipatory protentions and retentions of the perceiving subject. Put differently, and object isnt just a ‘what is the case’ , it is also a ‘how it is the case’, which is a matter of pragmatic relevance and use. What an object is is stance-dependent. Change the stance and you change the object.

“Thus what can be shown to have the character of constantly remaining, as remanens capax mutationem, constitutes the true being of beings which can be experienced in the world. What enduringly remains truly is. This is the sort of thing that mathematics knows. What mathematics makes accessible in beings constitutes their being.”(Heidegger 2010)

Heidegger explains that the fundamentally undiscussed ontological foundations of empirical science since Descartes are based on his formulation of objective presence.

“Thus the being of the "world" is, so to speak, dictated to it in terms of a definite idea of being which is embedded in the concept of substantiality and in terms of an idea of knowledge which cognizes beings in this way. Descartes does not allow the kind of being of innerworldly beings to present itself, but rather prescribes to the world, so to speak, its "true" being on the basis of an idea of being (being = constant objective presence) the source of which has not been revealed and the justification of which has not been demonstrated.

Thus it is not primarily his dependence upon a science, mathematics, which just happens to be especially esteemed, that determines his ontology of the world, rather his ontology is determined by a basic ontological orientation toward being as constant objective presence, which mathematical knowledge is exceptionally well suited to grasp.”(Heidegger)

But where does phenomenology connect with causality in accounting for consciousness as the phenomena it decides is its subject of study? — apokrisis

Phenomenology doesn’t begin from objective causality, it deconstructs it by grounding it in the structure of intentionality, which is neither objective nor subjective in a traditional sense.

"How?" is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction. By produce, I mean emit, generate, or otherwise enable. Much like eyesight is produced by the brain, so too is consciousness. — Garrett Travers

If you unite the eyes and the brain, in this way, you cannot say that it is the brain which produces eyesight, because it cannot be done without the eyes. And if you separate eyes from the brain, then you need to account for how an eye can see without a brain: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130227183311.htm#:~:text=2-,Eyes%20work%20without%20connection%20to%20brain%3A%20Ectopic%20eyes,without%20natural%20connection%20to%20brain&text=Summary%3A,neural%20connection%20to%20the%20brain.

Either way, you are wrong to say that eyesight is produced by the brain.