I'll pick two at random then.

What do you think of Tononi's IIT? I read that one. He's a neuroscientist.

Can you state in you own words how the brain generates consciousness?

.

The human being is the subject who makes judgements, conducts scientific experiments, devises hypotheses and so on. But at the same time, the subject is never within the frame, so to speak, on the obvious grounds of not being among the objects of analysis. — Wayfarer

I think I know what you are trying to get at, but in an important sense the subject is very much inside the frame. Reputation, peer review, coherence of claims. Brandom has an impressive theory of exactly the subject who makes judgements, etc. This is largely what philosophy obsesses over, this subject and the norms governing this subject. Heroic Socrates, getting to the bottom-most bottom of X.

There is something else, but it seems very close to Heidegger's beingquestion and Wittgenstein's talk of our wondering at a tautology. There is a here here. It am what it am. It's not how but that the world exists that is the mystical wonderful. Sartre's Nausea also says it. We have various versions of Being is not a being. The 'light' that discloses objects is not itself an object. So it's not the epistemological subject, the normative subject who is responsible for the coherence of their claims. It's the most abstract and yet most concrete question: what is being ? It is maybe the stupidest and maybe the most profound question. I go on in such detail because there may be common ground in this neighborhood. But the 'blindspot of science' is also the blindspot of metaphysics, it seems to me. But maybe there's nothing to find but the nothing. A tautology is.

Address my question, Nick.

Let's ask: — Wayfarer

Silicon bots, just like the carbonbased kind, tend to believe what they are told. For now they'll say as they've heard (read), just as we all do most of the time.

If we want some serious bot conversation, we need to form a small town of these things and let them talk as fast and as much as possible. We should probably also use atmospheric noise to feed in some random numbers to help with creativity. They should also compete with one another for attention.

What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? — green flag

This should not be skipped over. There would be no public expression of pain. But there are public expressions of pain. And when someone expresses pain we know that they are in pain, unless they are faking. But there could be no faking if we did not know what it was for someone to be in pain.

Assuming a tribe could survive without eyesight (maybe they live in a system of caves), I don't see why they should have a problem learning about the color concepts in the English language. — green flag

Wittgenstein's thought experiments using tribes assumes isolation.

They could understand that a man got a ticket for running a red light. — green flag

They might understand that there are others who see something that they do not. Something they call colors, and that they are able to distinguish differences between them. The one they call red means stop and that a man who did not stop got a ticket.

I am going to leave it here.

Yes, leave it there. Good choice!

I think there are historical reasons that lead us to conclude that consciousness is a property of matter. But it also depends on what you think matter (or more broadly "the physical) encompasses.

We don't know that consciousness is limited to brains. We don't know what causes it. Often when this is mentioned, the response is that we know that you can be made unconscious by various actions. Actually all we know is that we don't remember things from that period. Neuroscience says a lot about cognitive functions and their connection to neurons and glial cells and...so on. But that there is awareness/experiencing. — Bylaw

I agree. We do not know if experience is limited to brains. It could be the case that panpsychism is true, or a variant of the idea that some kind of proto-life is found in all the universe.

It could be. But it could be wrong. We don't know enough to be sure about this.

An accurate simulation of the organ and its function should also simulate its by product.

You asked for evidence, not theories. — Michael

No. I asked for answers.

I'm asking what kind of answer would be a satisfactory one. Just an example.

Like if someone asked "why do cars have wheels?" I can say that the kind of answer I'm looking for would be something like a rational reason the engineer designed wheels. It would relate the purpose of the car to the physics of the wheel.

The answer might be completely wrong, or have no evidence at all. It's not about the evidence, it's about the form an answer should take.

"Why did you do that?" - list of motives
"Why is the sky blue?" - physical cause of 'blueness'
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" - surprising answer (or non answer) designed to amuse
"Why do humans have noses?" - evolutionary (or developmental) advantages of the nose...

"Why do we have consciousness?" - ...

... what's the kind of answer that goes there?

I think there are historical reasons that lead us to conclude that consciousness is a property of matter. But it also depends on what you think matter (or more broadly "the physical) encompasses. — Manuel

Historical reasons are behind ideas pointing to "magical sources" of consciousness.
35 years of Scientific reasons point to our biology and a specific organ.

I agree. We do not know if experience is limited to brains. It could be the case that panpsychism is true, or a variant of the idea that some kind of proto-life is found in all the universe. — Manuel

Definition: "Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents. "*
So with the above definition in mind our understanding is that the conscious awareness of experiences is something we see in biological organisms with brains. We(as biological organisms with brains) can and are conscious of our thoughts, feelings, memories and we have the capacity to control actions etc.

The Null Hypothesis "forces" us to reject any claim pointing to ideas like panpsychism and proto-life until objective evidence is able to falsify our initial rejection. This is why science doesn't accept such claims until relative indications become available.

It could be. But it could be wrong. We don't know enough to be sure about this. — Manuel

-Actually we do know enough about the phenomenon to be pretty sure (beyond any reasonable doubt) that the conscious awareness of experience is limited to biological brains.
Its an expensive trait serving a cause that is valuable for biological organisms. Its a higher level feature with observable downward causation over the lower level parts of the system responsible for its emergence.
Not only we don't observe those characteristics in brainless non biological systems, but they are also useless and expensive to systems without any "interest" in survival.


*Giving Up on Consciousness as the Ghost in the Machine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121175/

That’s because consciousness is a property of organisms, which are a great deal more than brains and nervous systems. Sapiens, for example, have digestive, endocrine, skeletal, respiratory and other systems. Each of these are required for human consciousness.

Neuroscience has a great deal to say about consciousness, but it is not the full story. — NOS4A2

Well neuroscience can only describe the brain mechanisms responsible for creating the subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents.
If the statement " Neuroscience has a great deal to say about consciousness" you mean the above property of mind then yes, it has the great and its the only systematic and methodical way we have to investigate this phenomenon.
Sure the full story also includes how all those thoughts, feelings, actions memories etc are made available to the mechanism of consciousness. This is why Cognitive Science is our interdisciplinary approach to those questions.

Consciousness or subjective experience is a differentiated experience. In its modes of acts it is perceiving, willing, wishing etc. All these have their own sense in their intentionalities. What neuroscience does is that it transforms all these differences into differences in the physico-physiological discourse or in theoretical models. It says that the difference of the perceiving and wishing, for example, is the difference of the chemical or physical processes. So, it says that in true objective reality there is no such differences as difference between perceiving, willing, thinking i.e. difference as the difference of the sense of these intentions. According to neuroscience the difference between w i l l i n g and t h i n k i n g etc is quantitative or structural-processual difference of the underlying chemico-physiological processes. In this way the experienced differences and related consciousness disappear! Different ways to relate to different beings have no more any consciousness constituting meaning.

ITs scientifically outdated since its last update came back in ~2015(if I am correct),it makes unfounded assumptions for consciousness irreducibility to simple mechanisms, its insufficient and its so vague and sloppy in its formation and criteria that it can even justifies claims like "interconnected diodes are conscious). Its a theory of anything... not of a specific thing.
It appears to be a veiled attempt for a mathematical pretext for panpsychism.
The GIGO effect is present in this speculation.

Can you state in you own words how the brain generates consciousness? — bert1

I have done it many times....
I will include a description of the phenomenon and point to our current understanding of the responsible mechanism.
"Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to"
We know that our brains produce feelings, can store memories, recognize patterns,process biological signals(homeostasis) etc. Injuries and pathology in specific areas of the brain can render some of the above unavailable to the mental state to our conscious awareness.
So consciousness (conscious awareness of experiences) is nothing more than the physical ability of the brain to connect ALL those different areas of the brain in an active state where our symbolic language is able to introduce meaning and create an amazing narrative of that specific moment which includes our self and our environment.
There are many mechanisms like the Central Lateral thalamus that enable those states but the complexity of the brain guarantees years of investigation to understand the full picture.

You have a blind spot in respect of the issue at hand. 'Facing up to the hard problem of consciousness' is not trivial or redundant, but a statement about the inherent limitations of objective, third-person science with respect to the nature of first-person experience. — Wayfarer

First of all,made up pseudo philosophical ''why" problems are not "hard problems". The Evaluations of the quality of an experience is not a problem from our objective investigation of the mechanisms responsible for our ability to be conscious aware of our experiences.
i.e. we know that memories are stored in specific areas of the brain and we can become consciously aware of them (experience them) through the ability an extended brain mechanism to bring them "online"( connect them with others areas where Symbolic language, pattern recognition etc are store) and produce a meaningful experience of "remembering something" conscious state.
The ACTUAL content of that memory(conscious state) is IRRELEVANT to our investigation and understanding on how the brain does it.
Subjective is only the quality of the experienced state by an individual. The study of the mechanism responsible for retrieving "material" from a specific mental property (memory, old thought,biological stimuli (pain, thirst hunger),pattern etc) and sharing it with the rest of the stored properties in order to produce an experience is OBJECTIVE. This is why we found thousands of publications on mechanisms responsible for specific functions in a mental state.

The great thing is that we already have the technology to decode the content of an active conscious state allowing us to compare and identify common mechanisms in brains.

Jerome Feldman isn't a Neuro or Cognitive scientist and even if he was his ideas would never render "why" questions on the quality of our subjective conscious awareness of our experiences a problem for our Objective study of brain mechanisms - enablers of the conscious awareness of our experiences.

So, contrary to all of the journal articles that you continue to cite, the subjective unity of perception, which is a major aspect of the 'hard problem', remains unexplained, and indeed inexplicable, according to this paper, which essentially provides scientific validation for the argument made in Chalmer's original article. — Wayfarer

No it doesn't. Chalmer's asks Why questions. ITs like asking "why the intense wobbling of molecules is perceived as heat by our brains"....the answer will always be "BECAUSE"....... and Marc Solms through his new Theory on Consciousness will add "because it has evolutionary advantages to feel uncomfortable when your biology is exposed to a situation that has the potential to undermine your well being and your "being".
Chalmers's focuses on the wrong aspect of the problem. Anil Seth explains in detail why there is no value in trying asking "why" questions on the quality of the phenomenon. Its far more useful to find the mechanisms responsible and the "forces" that shaped their functions.
This is the only way to find how conscious states emerge, how they are affected and how we can improve them.
We have being doing it for decades, this is why we have Medications on psychopathology, this is why we have Brain Surgery protocols for different pathologies and this is why we can make Diagnosis (predictions) based on the physical condition of the organ (brain imagine).

The debate is over.....and philosophers didn't get the memo
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121175/

Well neuroscience can only describe the brain mechanisms responsible for creating the subjective experience of being — Nickolasgaspar

It can’t.

What [neuroscience] cannot do is replace the wide range of ordinary psychological explanations of human activities in terms of reasons, intentions, purposes, goals, values, rules and conventions by neurological explanations . . . . And it cannot explain how an animal perceives or thinks by reference to the brain's, or some parts of the brain's, perceiving or thinking. For it makes no sense to ascribe such psychological attributes to anything less than the animal as a whole. It is the animal that perceives, not parts of its brain, and it is human beings who think and reason, not their brains. The brain and its activities make it possible for us—not for it—to perceive and think, to feel emotions, and to form and pursue projects. (p. 3) — Review of Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience

First of all,made up pseudo philosophical ''why" problems are not "hard problems". — Nickolasgaspar

If you want to criticize something, you first have to demonstrate that you understand it.

We have being doing it for decades, this is why we have Medications on psychopathology, this is why we have Brain Surgery protocols for different pathologies and this is why we can make Diagnosis (predictions) based on the physical condition of the organ (brain imagine). — Nickolasgaspar

I have had near and dear relatives saved by neuroscience, for which I am eternally grateful, but that doesn't have any particular relevance to philosophy of mind.

Jerome Feldman isn't a Neuro or Cognitive scientist — Nickolasgaspar

Makes no difference to the facts presented.

OK, science geeks, how do we determine whether an AI is conscious? What do we do? What tests do we give it? — RogueAI

It depends from the definition. If we
AI "consciousness" is based on the algorithmic process of data feeding prioritizing those which are beneficial or detrimental for the predefined goals of the program.
Biological consciousness mainly deals "finding" meaning in feelings. Stimuli produce emotions that exceed the threshold of intensity and become the content of a conscious state where they are analyzed for their meaning in relation to the current condition, state, intersts and needs of the organism.

Jerome Feldman isn't a Neuro or Cognitive scientist — Nickolasgaspar

As stated in that article, there is no scientific account for the subjective unity of experience. If you go back and check it, that claim is thoroughly validated by the references in that paper, and is central to this whole argument. Just to re-state, Feldman shows that science has no account of which specific brain function gives rise to our sense of the experience of world as a unified whole. It can certainly help when something goes wrong with neural functioning and people mistake their wives for hats, and so on. But about why we experience the world as a unified whole, there is no current theory:

What we do know is that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene (Kaas and Collins 2003). That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience. So, this version of the NBP really is a scientific mystery at this time.

It can’t. — Wayfarer

Did you on purpose left the rest of my statement out? I hope it wasn't a dishonest practice but a decision of "economy of word".
My actual statement was:"Well neuroscience can only describe the brain mechanisms responsible for creating the subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents."
And the answer is "this is what it doesn't ". It verifies the Necessary and Sufficient role of a mechanism in the emergence of a mental state with specific characteristics

What [neuroscience] cannot do is replace the wide range of ordinary psychological explanations of human activities in terms of reasons, intentions, purposes, goals, values, rules and conventions by neurological explanations . . . . — Review of Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience

The dude who wrote the above doesn't understand the role of cognitive science and neuroscience....or he is trying to make a strawman for his ideology!
It's one thing to identify the responsible brain function for a mental state (this is what neuroscience does) and another to replace the wide range of psychological explanations with
the a dry anatomy of brain function.
There is a huge number of cases where Neuroscience identified specific mechanisms in areas linked to specific psychopathology and we now have technical solutions(treatments).
There is a reason why neuroscience is one discipline out of many in our attempt to decode the human brain.
The same is true for the rest of that article.
It a game of words and ambiguities.

If you want to criticize something, you first have to demonstrate that you understand it. — Wayfarer

Not my fault for your inability to understand the issue with "why" questions.

I have had near and dear relatives saved by neuroscience, for which I am eternally grateful, but that doesn't have any particular relevance to philosophy of mind. — Wayfarer

And the philosophy of mind you are referring to has nothing to do with the actual science and the real problems we have to map the functions of the brain.

Jerome Feldman isn't a Neuro or Cognitive scientist
— Nickolasgaspar
Makes no difference to the facts presented — Wayfarer

I start to believe that "cutting" parts of my post is what you do on purpose.

My actual statement was "Jerome Feldman isn't a Neuro or Cognitive scientist and even if he was his ideas would never render "why" questions on the quality of our subjective conscious awareness of our experiences a problem for our Objective study of brain mechanisms - enablers of the conscious awareness of our experiences."

So It does and I explained why these facts are baloney.

You need to be honest if you want to earn my time sir. Two red flags for answering a distorted statement of mine.....one more to go.

The dude who wrote the above doesn't understand the role of cognitive science and neuroscience. — Nickolasgaspar

Maxwell Richard Bennett is an Australian neuroscientist specializing in the function of synapses. He has published a large number of text books and journal articles on neuroscience.

the philosophy of mind you are referring to has nothing to do with the actual science — Nickolasgaspar

You don't demonstrate any understanding of philosophy.

It depends from the definition. If we
AI "consciousness" is based on the algorithmic process of data feeding prioritizing those which are beneficial or detrimental for the predefined goals of the program. — Nickolasgaspar

Why should we accept that definition for machine consciousness? It's not the same thing as qualia. You just created an arbitrary definition and assigned it to 'consciousness'. It doesn't answer the question of whether a machine can have qualia.

And Marc Solms through his new Theory on Consciousness will add "because it has evolutionary advantages to feel uncomfortable when your biology is exposed to a situation that has the potential to undermine your well being and your "being". — Nickolasgaspar

That's a just-so story. How did evolution produce conscious experiences?

The debate is over.....and philosophers didn't get the memo
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121175 — Nickolasgaspar

It's not over because you declare it over. We're having the debate write now in this thread. Seems like you've failed to convince people for the first 8 pages. Maybe over the next 8?

As stated in that article, there is no scientific account for the subjective unity of experience. — Wayfarer

IS it really? You do understand that conscious states shuffle stimuli giving the illusion of unification through the property of memory?
He needs to update his science mate!

Maxwell Richard Bennett is an Australian neuroscientist specializing in the function of synapses. He has published a large number of text books and journal articles on neuroscience. — Wayfarer

Australian(something is wrong with the water down there). Well he needs to do a better job. He needs to stop Strawmaning and understand the role of Neuroscience in our interdisciplinary study of the brain. Better he needs to keep his pseudo philosophical views outside his lab and stop making up excuses out of ignorance to bring them in. (If and only if you reproduce his statements correctly).

You don't demonstrate any understanding of philosophy. — Wayfarer

No for the type you are practicing. My philosophy is ALWAYS based on the latest scientific epistemology and on the actual goals of science....not on made up "problems".

Actually we do know enough about the phenomenon to be pretty sure (beyond any reasonable doubt) that the conscious awareness of experience is limited to biological brains. — Nickolasgaspar

If that's the case, then we can rule out machine consciousness, and consciousness arising in other non-biological systems, like meteor showers that just happen to be instantiating a simulation of conscious brain function.

Do your own research on ‘subjective unity of experience - neural correlates’.

My philosophy is ALWAYS based on the latest scientific epistemology and on the actual goals of science — Nickolasgaspar

You make my point for me.

"Why do we have consciousness?" - ...

... what's the kind of answer that goes there? — Isaac

Depends on whether we are cognitively capable of providing an answer. Can we answer all questions? Some philosophical questions have remained unanswered for millennia, despite much debate and scientific progress. Why does anything exist?

But of course we can speculate on an answer. Maybe when the right sort of material arrangement happens, consciousness also occurs. It's just the way nature is. Or maybe physicalism is wrong, because it's an abstraction from intersubjective experience. We can't really say what nature is other than something that gives rise to both the material and mental.

We can just invoke Kant at that point. The mind makes the world appear material to us.

think there are historical reasons that lead us to conclude that consciousness is a property of matter. But it also depends on what you think matter (or more broadly "the physical) encompasses. — Manuel

We don't even really know what 'matter' is. Could be quantum fields or vibrating 10 dimensional strings. Or maybe everything in physics is a kind of analogy, limited by human cognition and technology. Maybe we can't get at what reality fundamentally is.

That's a just-so story. How did evolution produce conscious experiences? — Marchesk

Evolution doesn't "produce" our conscious awareness of our experiences. Evolution describes the conditions and facts under which specific biological traits provide survival advantages to biological organisms and thus make it to the next generation.(through changes in allele frequencies).
It turns out it is helpful for organisms who don't acquire nutrients, protection and mates through root in the ground, thorns/toxic substances and airborne pollen......to be able to be aware of their needs and environment and to be conscious of which action and behavior in order to will allow them to acquire food, shelter, avoid preditors and find mates.

You make my point for me. — Wayfarer

No I am not. You are doing Chronicling (that dude said that once). I reflect on the available knowledge and come to conclusions which happen to be in agreement with the field. I don't hide behind arguments from ignorance (there is no scientific account for the subjective unity of experience).
Even if we didn't have a "scientific account" and it isn't answered by what we already know on how conscious states emerge.....what makes you think that we won't have one in the future, IF and only if it is a actual thing.