So, back on topic: — bert1
I also asked you for a relatively theory-free definition, but you ignored that question as well.
Look at you. Ducking and diving like mad.
C'mon. Where is the evidence or the logic that says that consciousness can exist in the absence of a content? — apokrisis
If that's the question you mean to ask me when you say 'the same question', I would say a couple of things. First, I don't think that the existence of life is something that can necessarily be explained. One of the other really useful essays on I read on biosemiosis What is Information?, refers to the work of Hubert Yockey who attempted to apply Claude Shannon's information theory to living organisms. — Wayfarer
Bert is asking why the kinds of behavior you observe, and capacities you attribute, to the jumping spider, your example, could not exist, for example, in an unconscious robot. — Janus
it is your choice to assert but not support the position that consciousness is something that can exist without a content. — apokrisis
And if I have failed to provide the support you seek for that position, then so be it.
Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind. — Daemon
Consciousness is a word with Cartesian dualism baked into it. And that is why those who bang on about "consciousness" find that its usage leads to a feeling there is some unbridged explanatory gap. — apokrisis
I thought that is the very thing you are questioning Apo on - how a brain alters, influences or causes changes in experience - essentially why there is an experience to be had at all given the states of brains.We can conclude very easily from the evidence that changes in brain function in humans alters the content of experience in humans. Of course it does. No one is denying that, not even the most extreme substance dualists. — bert1
If it were uncontroversial then how is it you are questioning how it happens? I'm with you on the questioning it, just not with you in saying it's uncontroversial.The fact that consciousness arises from brain processes is utterly uncontroversial. The philosophically interesting question that remains is how can it be that such a thing can arise from brain processes... A question to which science remains largely silent. — hypericin
It is what people think they mean when they say "consciousness" that is the controversial bit. What they usually mean is that somehow the world is "represented" as an "image" in some kind of Cartesian theatre. — apokrisis
Information is the relationship between cause and effect. The mind is information in that it is the relationship between body and environment.And using the word "information" in a variety of descriptions at different levels of abstraction, without providing a unifying general definition, is equivocation. — Galuchat
You're the fourth person I've asked in this discussion. The other three have simply ignored the question. I think that's because they don't have an answer. Can you do any better? — Daemon
If it were uncontroversial then how us it you are questioning how it happens? I'm with you on the questioning it, just not with you in saying it's uncontroversial. — Harry Hindu
If you can't explain how it happens then there is a problem with the theory that says that it does happen. Until you've explained how it does happen then it's still quite possible that you have a problem of correlation and not causation.It is uncontroversial that it happens from physical processes. Those who dispute that are properly marginalized.
The controversial part is how. — hypericin
And yet, I cannot account for how these images arise from physical processes, despite knowing that they do. It is uncontroversial that it happens from physical processes. Those who dispute that are properly marginalized. The explanatory gap results from the collapse of Cartesian dualism as a respectable philosophical position.. If Cartesian Dualism were allowed, there would be no gap, matter would be one kind of thing, mind another. — hypericin
It is uncontroversial that it happens from physical processes. Those who dispute that are properly marginalized. — hypercin
I consider Aristotle's Four Causes different facets of the same thing - information. Information is the relationship between cause and effect. Effects are also causes and causes effects of prior causes, therefore any example of Aristotle's four causes are really effects of prior causes themselves, all of which is information. Information, or relationships, or process is fundamental - not physical particles, like atoms, neurons and brains.I think that information, as the:
1) process of informing, is becoming (being acquisition).
2) product of informing, is being (actuality and/or potentiality).
And that in both cases it is the effect of Aristotle's Four Causes (material, formal, efficient, and final). — Galuchat
If you can't explain how it happens then there is a problem with the theory that says that it does happen. Until you've explained how it does happen then it's still quite possible that you have a problem of correlation and not causation. — Harry Hindu
Correct. To attribute semiosis to anything other than a mind is category error. So, terms like "biosemiosis" are misnomers. — Galuchat
But a Cartesian theater is what you are implying in talking about models that are attended. — Harry Hindu
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