Yes, I think so — bert1

So it has no intuitive support whatsoever. A theory has to be coherent to have intuitive support, for one has to be able to represent it to one's reason for a verdict.

My cup has a function. So, a function is a purpose something serves. It is not consciousness. It's like suggesting apples are numbers or sounds. — Bartricks

A function is something that a system does. In computing terms (I'm winging it here), you put an input in, the system does something to the input, and you get an output. What the system does is perform a function.

EDIT: And yes functions can be seen as purposive. In computers, functions serve the purposes of the programmer. In bodies, functions, such as digestion, serve a purpose for the organism. Functions tend to be useful, I guess, or they wouldn't be identified as functions.

So, solution one to the 'problem of consciousness' = some things are conscious.

Solution two - everything is conscious. — Bartricks

Correct!

Yes, so it is a clear case of a category error. Consciousness is a state of something , not a 'function'.

The view makes no sense at all.

Neither addresses the person who is concerned to know how material things can be conscious.

It just denies that they have any legitimate concern, yes?

Neither addresses the person who is concerned to know how material things can be conscious.

It just denies that they have any legitimate concern, yes? — Bartricks

Sort of, yes. It's like asking "Well, why do subatomic particles have spin?" The answer is, "Well, they just do. We've gone a low as we can go in terms of explanation." I don't know if I've actually got that right or not, there may be more basic concepts now, I don't know. I'm suggesting that consciousness does not admit of explanation in terms of more basic non-conscious things. It's not emergent. It's there right at the start.

Yes, so it is a clear case of a category error. Consciousness is a state of something , not a 'function'. — Bartricks

I don't know about a category error, but maybe. I think of it as a redefinition usually, a hijacking of the dictionary. When pressed, functionalists have sometimes said to me (on these forums) that "That's just what consciousness means." To which the answer must be "No, it doesn't." Then they say "Your definition is a folk definition, and mine is a scientific one." Then I say, "Then your theory doesn't explain what I mean by 'consciousness'". Then they say "What you mean doesn't exist or is incoherent. You should give that concept up and grow up." To which I say "But my concept has a perfectly clear referent, get off my dictionary." And it goes on.

So it is not a solution, it is just a refusal to accept that there is a problem.

You can 'solve' any problem by saying 'it just is so'. One can do that with complicated lumps of electrified meat without having to suppose that anything else supports conscious states. So the panty person has no motivation for their wildly excessive use of this 'solution'.

Second, there are rules about when you can say 'it just is so'. You can say it about self-evident truths of reason, for all arguments have to come to a end somewhere and the name of the game is to ground one's case in self-evident truths of reason. There is, as Kant said, nothing higher than reason and so one has done what one can to show something to be the case when one has shown how things that reason has said entail it.

You can't just say it at your convenience. Now, is it self-evident that molecules are conscious? No, on the contrary, it is self-evident that they are not, for it is self-evident that extended things are not conscous.

Note, if it were not self-evident that extended things are not conscious no one would even recognize a problem here.

There is a problem of consciousness confronting the materailist. No one denies that. But the only explanation of why there is such a problem is that the thesis conflicts with some apparent self-evident truths of reason about the nature of conscious states.

So, what you're doing is stipulating in the face of self-evident truths of reason.

The problem is how consciousness could be a state of any extended thing. The proposal that our brains support conscious is just a particular version of this more general problem. But you do not solve that particular problem by just insisting that everything is conscious.

To 'solve' the problem of consciousness - a problem that only confronts the materialist becasue it is wholly a product of being one - one would need to find self-evident truths of reason that imply material substances can be conscious and/or one would have to try and debunk those apparent self-evident truths of reason that imply no material thing can be conscious.

If, for instance, one could explain all of those rational intuitions that represent the mind to be immaterial to be the product of clandestine manipulation, then they would be debunked and would no longer count for anything.

And once one has done that - once one has knocked out all of those representations of reason that tell us our minds are immaterial (and there are lots) - then and only then could one argue on grounds of simplicity that our minds are material substances (assuming materialism is even coherent, of course, which it isn't) and then and only then could one stipulate that it just must be a brute fact about material substances - or some of them, such as those made of meat and that are above a certain level of complexity and have electricity running through them - are conscious. Not becuase there is any positive support for that view - there isn't (beyond the fact that we are conscious and we now have no grounds for supposing us to be anything more than our bodies) - but just because all the countervailing evidence has been reduced to rubble and this is the only option left.

That's how one solves the problem of consciousness.

One does not solve it by simply assuming materialism about the mind is true and then simply finding some arbitrary point at which to insist that 'here consciousness arises' or 'here consciousness is always present'. That is no solution to anything.

No. However, it's your position on "consciousness" that's at issue, Rogue, so let's get back to that. Non-anecdotal evidence that you or anyone else or anything at all is "conscious" — 180 Proof

People act in a way that is consistent with them having consciousness. For example, they react to pain by drawing their hand away, they react to greed by screwing each other over for money, etc. But this consistency can only be had by the presupposition that I am conscious. And we're back to square one: I am conscious.

↪Joshs I’m just really not sure why it’s so difficult to imagine consciousness is located entirely in the brain. Of course we are influenced by phenomena outside our brains, and it enters into, and influences, our consciousness. But outside phenomena aren’t “consciousness” per se — GLEN willows

The problem with locating any process entirely within some segment of the body is that it is a purely artificial move. We can designate some function or process as being associated exclusively with an anatomical part of the body, but that process is fully interconnected with the rest of the body, and the body is fully interconnected with its environment. Is respiration a function of the lungs? What about the role of the circulatory system that brings blood to be oxygenated or co2 to be eliminated? And isnt the air part of the lungs? Consciousness involves much more than just the brain. It is a synthesizing center that brings together information coming from all parts of the body as well as from the external environment. Thus, the coordinated communication among brain, body and environment constitute what consciousness is. I would agree that the higher the level of consciousness, the more complex and dominant role is played by cerebral neural activity relative to body and environment.

So "zombies" would say too. Again, merely anecdotal. The 'problem of other minds' remains.

So "zombies" would say too. Again, merely anecdotal. The 'problem of other minds' remains. — 180 Proof

Dude, like, in your decent into Cartesian doubts regarding other minds (given that the belief in other minds is not infallible on grounds of it all being anecdotal to you), do you then presume yourself to thee solipsist? (Because if what you wrote is sincere that's the only logically alternative to "other minds".)

One, how does this - logically, coherently - evidence the unreality and/or physicality of consciousness again?

Two, if indeed it is you that is responsible for the simulation of the world the rest of us “zombies” inhabit, some of us zombies might get displeased with you on account of the unpleasant conditions we’re living in … then one might get into a zombie apocalypse scenario. A one against all kind of picture. Not saying you wouldn’t survive but it might be an altogether unpleasant experience for you – this solipsistic nightmare you might precipitate upon yourself. So, in conclusion, stop it with suggesting that we’re all numbskull zombies on account of your inability to accept that we’re not!

Don’t worry about 180. I hold a non-infallible but inexpressibly strong justified-true-belief that you are conscious. And there’s a whole bunch of others that also know it as well as I do. Just saying. :smile:

Thus, the coordinated communication among brain, body and environment constitute what consciousness is. — Joshs

I fully agree with this statement and your argument for in, but find that it pertains to only one of two equally valid interpretations of what consciousness is. The other equally valid, but inconsistent, sense of consciousness being linguistically represented by the "I" in statements such as "I perceived X (in my environment)" and "I chose X (this irrespective of whether choice is illusory, for it would yet be an aspect of consciousness). In the latter sense, consciousness stands apart from percepts (etc.) which are experienced by consciousness, whereas in the former consciousness and percepts (etc.) are necessarily entwined and codependent in order for either to be.

For me these are two disparate possibilities in respect to what consciousness is. Curious to know how you'd address the distinction between these two senses of consciousness.

Dude ... do you then presume yourself to thee solipsist? — javra

No.

One, how does this - logically, coherently - evidence the unreality and/or physicality of consciousness again?

Non sequitur (strawman assumption).

Ya, OK, recommendation still stands.

It doesn't matter if consciousness is fundamental or not. It matters how it relates to reality and especially the dimension of time.

Just like a faucet "creates" water.

One of the aspects of the mind and body problem which I wonder about is how much is due to the brain and to what extent it is distributed throughout the body. Of course, the brain is involved in the organisation of the nervous system, but it can be asked whether other organs are of equal importance, as recognised in the Eastern tradition of chakra points, including the heart, root and sacral chakras and meridian points.

Some may see this understanding of energy centres as being a form of folk wisdom, but I wonder if the focus upon the brain, especially in neuroscience places too much emphasis on the brain alone in the generation of consciousness. In particular, emotions are connected with the physiological aspects of the entire body.
.

Anthropocentricity here is clearly unwarranted. At least in mammals, as far as I know, feedback from the peripheral nervous system is integral to central nervous system homeostatic functioning as each mammal's autonomic regulator of 'body organs' as well as subpersonal coordinator of environmental perceptions and adaptive behaviors. Mind (sys. 2) is the enactive "rider on the elephant" of embodiment (sys. 1) and whatever the anthropocentric, cultural expression (e.g. "chakras" "chi" "humors"), mammalian biology – psycho-physiology – is experimentally undeniable. Mind (sys. 2), it seems to me, is how sufficiently complex, embodied brains (sys. 1) interacts with – is enacted by – their social-imbedded-in-natural environment.

We now know that memory isn’t located in one anatomical part of the brain but is distributed throughout the entire brain.

Memory is part of consciousness

↪Joshs there are many things involved with your left hand - the weather affects it, you touch other people, your eyes cause you to hold it up if the sunnis too bright. The problem with your analogy is you’re saying those outside factors ARE your hand — GLEN willows

We were talking about consciousness, which is not an anatomical location within the body ( like a hand) but a function or process. There is never a neat relation between anatomically defined parts of the brain(amygdala, frontal lobe, hippocampus), and functions such as language and memory. This is because anatomy is defined mostly by visual appearance. These parts of the brain appear to us as distinctly identifiable blobs so we name them and try to squeeze unique functions into them. Then we remove those parts or observe the results of damage to them and see if the resulting deficits allows us to cleanly assign them a function. This doesn’t work out very well. We now know that memory isn’t located in one anatomical part of the brain but is distributed throughout the entire brain. The hand is also defined anatomically . We can loosely agree
that the hand is that part of our anatomy above the wrist. But does this describe a functionally unified entity, or does it encompass a variety of interconnected functional systems that we arbitrarily group together as ‘hand’?

What I’m arguing is that we dont fully understand the functions of any aspect of the body without recognizing that our pointing to a ‘body’ is arbitrarily separating one aspect of a system based on anatomical criteria( the body is a blob of attached parts that can be visually distinguished from its surroundings). The body and the environment which sustains and interacts with it are one system, not two. Bones don’t survive without gravity putting pressure on them. The nervous system doesn’t exist without external stimulation. A digestive system needs food particles to keep it working, muscles need resistance in order to continue to be muscles. Our perceptual systems don’t allow us to develop the ability see or hear properly without our physically interacting with an environment that actively participates in defining its functioning. The very structure of a body with all its internal components implies a very specific environment, just as a bird’s or fish’s or snakes body implies a specific body-environment system.
The animal isn’t simply a body placed in an environment. It is an inseparable body-environment system.
Consciousness in a sensory deprivation chamber functions very differently than on a crowed street, or when getting a massage, or when mediating , or when drunk. That doesn’t mean these different environmental factors define consciousness by themselves , any more than it means that consciousness can be defined in isolation from its surroundings. Rather, consciousness is an organized system of interactions between an environment and an organism. Biologists and psychologists are coming to the conclusion that all
consciousness requires , at the most primordial
level, is sensitivity to an outside, and this includes even single-called organisms.

“Not just animals are conscious, but every organic being, every autopoietic cell is conscious. In the simplest sense, consciousness is an awareness of the outside world. And this world need not be the world outside one's mammalian fur. It may also be the world outside one's cell membrane. Certainly some level of awareness, of responsiveness owing to that awareness, is implied in all autopoietic systems. (Margulis and Sagan 1995, p. 122)

Philosophical Zombies who had no normal consciousness they wouldn’t blend in with normally conscious people, which Chalmers contends. Think about it. A PZ couldn’t anticipate and fake all the reactions to stimuli that we express verbally.

so you’re arguing that although we don’t know exactly how, or where, consciousness reacts to external stimuli like the other parts of our perceptions and physical systems. I see what you’re saying.

sorry but exactly how do you describe a chakra point?

Generally speaking we agree, and I respect your opinion. As you say to immaterialists "Yeah yeah, but how do they know that? But I also contend that we don't know if neuroscience - or dare I say "neurophilosophy" - will eventually find a materialist source of consciousness.

Of course I'm speculating. My argument hinges on (and I know you don't want me to post an exhaustive list of these) all the phenomena and theories that were deemed "impossible to explain" or just "impossible" in the past, that science nonetheless revealed to be indeed possible.

... a materialist source of consciousness. — GLEN willows

Is this what we're looking for? What does that even mean?

A materialist source of awareness can't possibly be found. It is essentially pointing at this and claiming it seems like that. Can't be done.

Not saying neuroscience is futile, but it shouldn't be extrapolated into a solution for everything. Consciousness depends on factors other than our everyday experience. Doesn't even matter if the brain is an important factor, which it is. That still doesn't root us in "materialism" which is really a misnomer.

No. But I'm saying that's what neuroscience is looking for.

Did I say neuroscience was a solution for everything? Ok if my terminology is wrong, and it could well be, then how would describe the theory (just a theory) that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, and nothing else. We don't understand how it works, and it may not be explained for hundreds of years, but it is NOT anything that exists outside the brain?.

I put the above question to you as well.