/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17616746]

What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process, and that mind-body duality (or any other idea which places consciousness above the material world) is just an egoist coping mechanism we employ to deal with our existence being nothing more than the result of a bunch of amino acids ensuring that they are replicated in a particular order?

Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?

[Anonymous No.17616773]

>>17616746
Dennett is a cringe bugman söyboy

[Anonymous No.17616791]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?

It couldn't hurt.

[Anonymous No.17616829]

>>17616746
Matter itself is a paranormal abstract godlike entity. Anything existing at all is proof enough of the paranormal.

[Anonymous No.17616836]

>>17616746
>What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process
"is the result of" is the operative phrase. Consciousness ISN'T a biochemical process, otherwise that would assume biochemicals have consciousness. To say that it "emerges out of" such physical processes suggests that it is still a distinguished entity deserving of its own level of description and ontology.

I accept that it has physical causes but am more sympathetic to Chalmers's naturalistic dualism that states that consciousness is a natural phenomenon but is its own substance that cannot be explanatorily reduced to physics. We can't even describe a single biological cell completely in terms of physics, so there's no hope to do it with consciousness.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.17616842]

>>17616773
Not even a cromulent argument.

[Anonymous No.17616882]

>>17616773
Find an argument, schizo

[Anonymous No.17617156]

>>17616836
Consciousness is a biochemical process simple as. No tangible reason to think otherwise. “Because I think so” not valid btw

[Anonymous No.17617164]

>>17616829
This but less retarded and schizo

[Anonymous No.17617165]

>>17617156
Nice assertions faggot

[Anonymous No.17617171]

>>17616746
the death of philosophy, that's what it takes.

you literally have to get rid of philosophical questioning.

>>17616773
he's not wrong tho, dennett is pretty lame

[Anonymous No.17617172]

>>17617156
Ok explain to me in strictly biochemical terms how the color red is perceived.

[Anonymous No.17617174]

>>17617156
are all biochmecial processes conscious? only some? if only some why those ones?
and why biochemical, why not all chemical/physical processes?

[Anonymous No.17617178]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?
this would mean literally nothing and still wouldn’t necessarily explain how the phenomena occurs. you also can’t even measure if the first form of life has a consciousness or not because you can’t observe another consciousness period

[Anonymous No.17617191]

>>17617174
Yeah I mean my left nut is a biochemical process, is it conscious?

[Anonymous No.17617204]

>>17616746
The pali canon refutes Dennett.
Deep is this dependent co-arising, and deep its appearance. It's because of not understanding and not penetrating this Dhamma that this generation is like a tangled skein, a knotted ball of string, like matted rushes and reeds, and does not go beyond transmigration, beyond the planes of deprivation, woe, and bad destinations.

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for aging and death?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition do aging and death come?' one should say, 'Aging and death come from birth as their requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for birth?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does birth come?' one should say, 'Birth comes from becoming as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for becoming?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does becoming come?' one should say, 'Becoming comes from clinging as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for clinging?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does clinging come?' one should say, 'Clinging comes from craving as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for craving?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does craving come?' one should say, 'Craving comes from feeling as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for feeling?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does feeling come?' one should say, 'Feeling comes from contact as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for contact?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does contact come?' one should say, 'Contact comes from name-and-form as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for name-and-form?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does name-and-form come?' one should say, 'Name-and-form comes from consciousness as its requisite condition.'

"If one is asked, 'Is there a demonstrable requisite condition for consciousness?' one should answer, 'There is.'

"If one is asked, 'From what requisite condition does consciousness come?' one should say, 'Consciousness comes from name-and-form as its requisite condition.'

[Anonymous No.17617223]

>>17617156

[Anonymous No.17617230]

>>17617204
"Thus, Ánanda, from name-and-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form. From name-and-form as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging. From clinging as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress.

[Anonymous No.17617237]

>>17617204
>>17617230
Buddhist posters are insufferable
Why do you feel compelled to vomit walls of text about your death cult in every thread you can find?

[Anonymous No.17617239]

>>17616746
First argue your way out of global skepticism, then we can discuss metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.17617275]

>>17617204
This is awful. Do you think think text is inspiring? It's as if a committee of leftists tried to make a Buddhist meme.

[Anonymous No.17617351]

>>17616746
reddit tier post

[Anonymous No.17617354]

>>17616746
Literally no amount of evidence can prove materialism. The fact of phenomenal experience alone makes it self-evidently wrong.

[Anonymous No.17617357]

>makes an unfalsifiable assertion which is essentially pure metaphysical speculation
>oh btw the alternatives are just supernatural gobbledigook our brain invents as a coping mechanism
he has a really nice beard though

[Anonymous No.17617359]

>>17617275
>This is awful. Do you think think text is inspiring? It's as if a committee of leftists tried to make a Buddhist meme.

[Anonymous No.17617439]

>>17617359
There really is no arguing it isn't awful.

[Anonymous No.17617467]

>>17617275
If he were to just explain it to you, you'd throw a fit about how he's not just quoting the Buddha verbatim. You know how people recommend you to read What the Buddha Taught, then the Heart Sutra, and to ignore people who just say LMFAO JUST READ THE PALI CANON BRO? This is why. It's an oral tradition written down. It's intentionally crafted in such a manner as to be easy to remember and chant. It's not supposed to be read, it's supposed to be memorized alongside a simpler version that actually explains what the Sutta means.

[Anonymous No.17617488]

>>17617467
>You know how people recommend you to read What the Buddha Taught, then the Heart Sutra
Not him but I fell for this meme and would never recommend it to anyone else.
At best if you're interested in Buddhism just have a look at the Dhammapada and stop there. Learning about Buddhism has been a complete waste of time for me.

[Anonymous No.17617507]

>>17616746
All these processes where found within consciousness. Something within consiousness cannot be the ground of consciousness. So dennett fags are wrong.

[Anonymous No.17617519]

>>17616746
hypocrite that you are believing your chemicals that they are chemicals etc etc

[Anonymous No.17617540]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?
You’re begging the question if you think this proves anything, since idealists, panpsychists and dualists would expect the same result.

[Anonymous No.17617572]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?
No, because it completely goes against the entire point of the question consciousness, when you think this causal reference explains it; the fact that it exists.

[Anonymous No.17617598]

>>17616746
Because you're fighting up hill against 2000 years of the entire conception of the Self and what a soul is and blah blah blah. The Platonic idea of the discrete soul piloting the body that's entrenched itself in Christianity isn't going to be ditched leaving a vacuum just because of facts and logic, you're going to have to replace it with something.

[Anonymous No.17617674]

>>17617467
I've read the Pali canon (well as much as I could stand.) It is awful. Like ad copy for a poorly run used car lot. Maybe you could convert poorly fed farm labors with that stuff, but it it's not suited for the modern world.

[Anonymous No.17617691]

>>17616746
please for the love of god learn what the hard problem is. its not intelligence, its not will or intent, not memory but its experience that is the problem. if experience is material (not created by material, but is material) than point to qualia like you would a bottle of water. it may be a side product, it may be that what we call material doesnt exist, it may be that it is merely a property of the material, but pure materialism is not an option because it dismisses the empirical data that is qualia itself.

[Anonymous No.17617746]

>>17617674
This is why the Pali Canon isn't used for conversion, or even really reference. This is why in every Buddhist thread, you'll get someone pointing this out. The Pali Canon is NOT the Bible, it's NOT the Quran, it's not even the Torah.

[Anonymous No.17617805]

>>17617691
what empirical data is there for qualia

[Anonymous No.17617821]

>>17617805
you can only access empirical data through your qualia you septuplemick

[Anonymous No.17617823]

>>17617805
the fact we're even talking about them. why aren't we talking about the problem of gloopdegloop?

[Anonymous No.17617833]

>>17617805
There is none, that's the problem, and it's part of why no one takes Cartesianism seriously.

[Anonymous No.17617836]

>>17617821
>>17617823
would a computer printing the line "this apple looks red to me" count as well?

[Anonymous No.17617854]

>>17616773
/thread

[Anonymous No.17617867]

>>17617172
Red cone is stimulated by light. Sends a signal to the occipital lobe. Bam, perception of red.

[Anonymous No.17617868]

>>17617805
>>17617833
y-you guys have qualia right?

[Anonymous No.17617885]

consciousness explained away*

[Anonymous No.17617890]

>>17617868
yeah but that's anecdotal not empirical since it can't be verified by others in any way

[Anonymous No.17617907]

>>17617867
Do some "people" actually think like this or are you guys being ironic?

[Anonymous No.17617912]

It will turn out to be true that consciousness is extradimensional.

[Anonymous No.17617917]

>>17617907
This is how thinking period works, yes, a brain doing stuff.

[Anonymous No.17617924]

> they appear to be sentient and self-aware?

'Appear' is the problem, and it will always be all you have, since consciousness is not observable. Hence why the only possible scientific conclusion on the matter is eliminative materialism, which is self-refuting.

[Anonymous No.17617927]

>>17617912
I unironically believe the new agers are mostly right and that we are higher dimensional beings temporarily incarnated in the material plane for various reasons.

[Anonymous No.17617943]

>>17617927
Same. And I've had a number of experiences that have nudged me in that direction. I can still accept that those experiences were just products of my mind and its chemistry, but that doesn't explain anything much to me and is less interesting anyway.

[Anonymous No.17617953]

>>17617943
What kind of experiences?
>I can still accept that those experiences were just products of my mind and its chemistry
Maybe so, but even that would have no bearing on the original claim that consciousness is extradimensional.

[Anonymous No.17617965]

>>17617927
It's true

[Anonymous No.17617974]

>>17617746
>>17617467
So you just have to use modern works then. Maybe people complain about your inauthenticity, but at least you could have a response besides "yeah it's awful. Our texts are awful. Please convert still though. "

>>17617805
Found the p-zombie.

>>17617890
Not the definition of empiricial.

[Anonymous No.17617978]

>>17617867
Okay retard, how is there an entity that perceives it? How does this entity translate into biochemical processes?

[Anonymous No.17617988]

>>17617836
You only have access to your own consciousness/qualia, you can't even be sure that other people have them, it's just reasonable to assume so since they're the same type of thing as you.

[Anonymous No.17617992]

>>17617974
might as well say we have empirical data for god's existence then if personal subjective experience counts
btw my point is that from a scientific perspetive dennett seems to be right, not that he is right full stop. this is merely a limit of empiricism

[Anonymous No.17618005]

>>17617978
What? Why the need for a homunculus? The brain activity is the perception. The brain is the perceiving entity. No extra entity required.

[Anonymous No.17618007]

>>17617974
No one who knows what they're talking about would ever recommend reading the Pali Canon to a beginner, and there's a reason for that. This is why people offer things like What the Buddha Taught, which was written recently for Westerners, or the Heart Sutra, which is part of a long line of summarizing the Buddha's teachings. The logocentrism of Abrahamic religion does not apply here, just like how it applies nowhere but Abrahamism. This is why I said what I said in >>17617467. The Pali Canon is not awful (the most popular English translation is garbage though, absolutely), it serves its purpose. That purpose is different from the purpose of the Bible.

Pic related is the Pali Canon.

[Anonymous No.17618013]

>>17617992
>if personal subjective experience counts
It counts as evidence of itself, its contents are up for debate.

[Anonymous No.17618014]

>>17618007
Or you could skip all of that shit and just read Zhuangzi.

[Anonymous No.17618023]

>>17618013
WHAT EVIDENCE RETARD A COMPUTER CAN SAY THE SAME THING AND IT PROVES NOTHING

[Anonymous No.17618024]

>>17616746
>Consciousness is material
Okay how do you explain qualia?
>BRO QUALIA DOESN'T EXIST OMG BELIEVE IN ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM, ACCEPT A SELF-REFUTING PREMISSE!!!


This is how this conversation always goes. Materialists are retarded and will never be able to cope

[Anonymous No.17618026]

>>17618023
your own subjective awareness counts as evidence of itself, you can be quite certain that you yourself are conscious, you can't be certain of what else is conscious.

[Anonymous No.17618029]

>>17618024
P-Zombie detected.

[Anonymous No.17618033]

>>17618005
But. How. Does. The. Brain. Translate. What. It. Perceives. Into. You?

You absolute retarded nigger

[Anonymous No.17618035]

>>17617890
but you can verify your own cant you? and if youre not a solipsist and think somehow there is something special about you just assume that everyone else has it.

[Anonymous No.17618037]

>>17618026
yeah that was my fucking point, it's clearly real but is outside of the realm of empirical study

[Anonymous No.17618042]

>>17618029
Wtf is a p-zombie? Also your ad-hom is not an argument, keep coping

[Anonymous No.17618046]

>>17616746
show me a piece of consciousness then. pro tip: you can't

[Anonymous No.17618045]

>>17618033
I'm the brain. No translation required. I feel like you're making this more complicate than it needs to be.

[Anonymous No.17618050]

>>17618024
Cope, dualist cuck

[Anonymous No.17618052]

>>17618037
I was replying to the post that said
>>17617992
>might as well say we have empirical data for god's existence then if personal subjective experience counts
This is not the same thing at all. God is not self-evident the way your own awareness is

[Anonymous No.17618054]

>>17618005
thats exactly the problem. no extra entity is required, but experience, an extra entity is there

[Anonymous No.17618059]

>>17618045
>I am this object which I'm referring in a third person

You can't make this shit up. I refuse to believe you're this retarded

[Anonymous No.17618065]

>>17618052
many people claim to have personally experienced spiritual things just as everybody (except delusional materialists) claim to experience qualia. both are unverifiable within science no matter what kind of mapping of the brain or whatever is accomplished.

[Anonymous No.17618070]

>>17618024
Moreover if consciousness is material it begs the question why it lacks the properties that are considered definitionally necessary for matter: extension, mass, volume. What is the width of consciousness? Its virtuality cannot be explained in terms of physical properties.

[Anonymous No.17618074]

>>17618042
An entity, like you, that does not experience qualia. It's a walking corpse, a bugman, filled with soi and marvel movies.

[Anonymous No.17618076]

>>17618050
Wh-what am I suppose to deduct from that image? That you only agree with the current zeitgeist and have no critical thinking of your own? Bravo anon

[Anonymous No.17618078]

>>17618059
That's all consciousness is. It's self-reference. Why are you so attached to this supposed "extra entity"?

[Anonymous No.17618080]

>>17618065
They're completely different, the awareness can't be doubted, its contents can, and in any case very few people actually claim that God spoke to them or something.

Any individual scientist obviously has to admit to himself that his awareness exists and try to integrate it into his understanding of reality.

[Anonymous No.17618082]

>>17618074
Are you unironically claiming that qualia doesn't exist?

[Anonymous No.17618083]

>>17616746
Materialists are too dumb to even understand the hard problem let alone solve it. This thread is proof

[Anonymous No.17618087]

>>17618074
What the fuck, I have no way of proving I'm not a P-zombie given that I cannot prove to anyone externally that I have qualia.

[Anonymous No.17618097]

>>17618087
>>17618082
Have you considered that this is why most people reject dualism? That you can't even prove that you are experiencing anything? Perhaps the fact that the Hard Problem of Consciousness being by definition unsolveable is a huge fucking problem?

[Anonymous No.17618102]

>>17618080
awareness of qualia can absolutely be doubted, as many will do even when computers can act seemingly identical to humans. it doesn't matter if every scientist agrees that they have qualia because it can still not be objectively verified in any, only inter-subjectively.

[Anonymous No.17618108]

>>17618097
You can be a monist/nondualist and anti-materialist

[Anonymous No.17618111]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?
you fundamentally misunderstand the problem if you think that solves anything. people who believe that consciousness is in some sense immaterial (or who believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of matter) are not denying that human beings evolved from simpler forms of life that did not appear to be sentient at all.

[Anonymous No.17618114]

>>17618102
in any way*

[Anonymous No.17618115]

>>17618102
>awareness of qualia can absolutely be doubted,
No your own awareness can't be doubted. Every scientists has a model of the universe which includes awareness

[Anonymous No.17618133]

>>17617867
why does a signal being sent to a lobe result in the experience of perceiving red?

[Anonymous No.17618148]

>>17616746
*ahem*
>Qualia

That is all

[Anonymous No.17618151]

>>17618148
agreed

[Anonymous No.17618161]

>>17618133
No result. Just the brain activity. The signal is the experience.

[Anonymous No.17618163]

>>17618097
>Perhaps the fact that the Hard Problem of Consciousness being by definition unsolveable is a huge fucking problem?

>Can't prove something that everyone knows exist
>Hides behind epistemological dogma to escape the truth

You're beyond salvation

[Anonymous No.17618165]

>>17618115
>No your own awareness can't be doubted
personally it can't, but from the scientific perspective which seeks to move the locus of understanding from any subjective perspective to an objective model it can be. again, everyone agreeing that they have personally experienced god would not make god's existence scientifically verified.
>Every scientists has a model of the universe which includes awareness
awareness or qualia? not necessarily the same thing, obviously awareness can be shown but it can be shown in a computer program or bacteria too in an at least primitive sense

[Anonymous No.17618183]

>>17618161
there is a clear difference between the empirical description of a signal being sent to a lobe & the experience of perceiving red. one set of words refers to a physical, empirically verifiable observation about material interactions & the other set refers to the subjective experience of that signal being sent. why does the latter exist?

[Anonymous No.17618193]

>>17616746
doesn't the idea that consciousness is an inherent property of matter have far more disastrous consequences for your worldview?

[Anonymous No.17618198]

>>17618163
>i have no clue what i'm talking about
Oh, well, why didn't you just say so. Here you go:
http://consc.net/papers/facing.html

[Anonymous No.17618208]

>>17618070
hmm i never thought about it this way, thanks anon

[Anonymous No.17618229]

>>17618198
I'm not going to read some random retard's ramblings about the Hard Problem, you stupid faggot.

[Anonymous No.17618237]

>>17618183
There's no reason to distinguish between the two, other than historical/philosophical reasons. Maybe let go of Cartesian dualism?

[Anonymous No.17618245]

>>17618198
I read the whole thing. Absolute sophistry, you're only digging yourself further

[Anonymous No.17618246]

>>17618229
That would be the paper where David Chalmers described the Hard Problem of Consciousness; it's also the paper wherein he coined the term "Hard Problem of Consciousness".

[Anonymous No.17618247]

>>17618165
>the scientific perspective which seeks to move the locus of understanding from any subjective perspective to an objective model it can be
the scientific perspective starts with awareness, it can't doubt it, every scientist is using his awareness in the first place. It is not like doubting God, because God is not a requisite for any science to take place in the first place the same way awareness is.

[Anonymous No.17618261]

>>17618070
>consciousness is material
No one is arguing this, though. Rather, "consciousness" is a bundle of processes. You can't measure the weight of taxes, or how wide a foodweb is, or how hot the movement of people through an area is, but to say that these things don't exist or are made of some special other stuff is ludicrous.

"Consciousness being material" is just a strawman used by dualists. How can consciousness be material if one rejects the entire idea of mind vs matter entirely (either through some kind of monism, pluralism, or some kind of weird dualism wherein both anger and apples are made of fire or whatever).

[Anonymous No.17618268]

>>17618261
Someone hasn't read Plato.

[Anonymous No.17618272]

>>17618268
No, you haven't, and it shows.

[Anonymous No.17618276]

>>17618237
There is plenty of reason to distinguish between the two when one side of the debate is arguing that "Consciousness is a biochemical process simple as" -- there is an entirely different aspect to the [process / interaction in question] that does not appear to be approachable through biochemical descriptions.

[Anonymous No.17618281]

>>17618272
>no u
I'm not the guy you were responding to. You're a retard.

[Anonymous No.17618286]

>>17618268
plato touches on the hard problem of consciousness and never comes to a solution. not only have you not read plato, but you havent read aristotle, or any of the neoplatonists.

[Anonymous No.17618311]

>>17618247
>the scientific perspective starts with awareness
no it doesn't, it starts with externally observable events. of course in a trivial sense it's rooted in experience but the whole point is to construct a model that's not contained withing experience itself but is instead defined by certain contents of nonlocalized experiences (i.e. from many subjective sources into one objective source). from the perspective of any human, qualia is self evident but from the scientific perspective it simply isn't because it's not a content of experience but rather experience itself. there is no way around this nor should there be because it's not the principle goal of science. the problem is people adopting the scientific perspective as if it were primary and not just that, a perspective to be used to accomplish things.
also, the p-zombie thing easily refutes your point not to mention the as yet unaddressed question of computers claiming to have conscious experiences

[Anonymous No.17618318]

>>17618311
>of course in a trivial sense it's rooted in experience
It's not trivial at all. The entire scientific process is dependent on and subservient to awareness.

You keep bringing up pzombies and computers when they don't even begin to contradict the fact that the scientific method's bedrock is consciousness.

[Anonymous No.17618326]

>>17616829
>be paranormal
>be abstract
>be godlike
>just sit there and respond to causality
do litfags really?

[Anonymous No.17618328]

>>17618261
>You can't measure the weight of taxes, or how wide a foodweb is, or how hot the movement of people through an area is, but to say that these things don't exist or are made of some special other stuff is ludicrous.
taxes & foodwebs are surely things that are dependent upon the existence of human consciousness to begin with

[Anonymous No.17618334]

>>17618318
ok I give up, you really can't read

[Anonymous No.17618364]

>>17618311
>of course in a trivial sense it's rooted in experience
not really trivial at all. its absolutely fundamental.
>the whole point is to construct a model that's not contained withing experience itself but is instead defined by certain contents of nonlocalized experiences (i.e. from many subjective sources into one objective source).
you're mistaking the idealized 'target' of science for the reality of what science produces. i don't think science ever actually has produced any objective knowledge about anything, but rather scientific consensus is typically based on accumulated subjective experiences that can at best approximate an underlying reality.

[Anonymous No.17618387]

What a grand hypothesis.
And if a quantum simulation proved you wrong?
IE. Life doesn't chemically arise by chance and that evolution doesn't turn out the way you would expect it to.

[Anonymous No.17618392]

>>17616746
>just an egoist coping mechanism
This kneejerk and immature explanation of the origin of the idea of consciousness is why your arguments against consciousness will never be convincing.

[Anonymous No.17618398]

>>17618334
No you're just making an incoherent argument. The empirical process you're referring to that science is based on cannot be applied to the issue of consciousness, it's a unique issue, and you can't compare it to other empirical claims.

[Anonymous No.17618410]

>>17618398
>from the perspective of any human, qualia is self evident but from the scientific perspective it simply isn't because it's not a content of experience but rather experience itself. there is no way around this nor should there be because it's not the principle goal of science. the problem is people adopting the scientific perspective as if it were primary and not just that, a perspective to be used to accomplish things.

[Anonymous No.17618425]

>>17618410
the scientific perspective has an epistemological bedrock that includes subjective awareness. You can't use the derivation of that bedrock to prove the bedrock.

[Anonymous No.17618426]

>>17618261
>You can't measure the weight of taxes, or how wide a foodweb is
Those are abstractions that supervene on the physical. Taxes are an idea, something mental. A foodweb is a relational network between organisms, it's just a concept that describes who eats what.
More to the point you can measure the mass of biomolecules, so if consciousness is strictly reducible to chemical process it should be entirely explainable in terms of a series of transitions and energy transfers between masses. That still doesn't tell me about the sourness of a lemon or the pain of a toothache.

Mental categories, minds, ideas, mental states, abstractions, consciousness, are ontologically independent. You can't have them without physics, i'd grant that much. But a physical description of it may very well be impossible, and if you can't describe something you can't know it on those terms. There needs to be some kind of science of virtuality to understand it properly.

[Anonymous No.17618461]

>>17618364
objective is just a word here. I don't believe science gives us knowledge of noumena, the point is just that the scientific model is divorced from any subjective experience and is instead derived empirically from reported contents of experience and not experience themselves which are invisible from the outside. the scientific model, which is what you adopt when taking on the scientific perspective, is blind to qualia because qualia is not a content of experience that can be reported and understood any more than existence, being, can be scientifically proven despite things clearly existing. both are necessary requirements for the scientific perspective to exist but neither can be verified within it because they cannot be "objectively" taken as anything at all.

[Anonymous No.17618483]

>>17618461
>the scientific model is divorced from any subjective experience
No it isn't. It requires that your subjective experience, your senses and reason, map onto the exterior world in some real way. Experience is the medium through which any science is conducted. It furthermore supposes that other people have the same ability to sense and reason about the world, so that comparisons can be drawn between the results that you and they get in a given subject.

[Anonymous No.17618498]

>>17618426
>But a physical description of it may very well be impossible
Strictly impossible and humanly inconceivable aren't necessarily the same.

[Anonymous No.17618500]

>>17618461
>the point is just that the scientific model is divorced from any subjective experience
i completely disagree. it is completely dependent upon subjective experience(s). how can it be divorced from them?
>is instead derived empirically from reported contents of experience and not experience themselves which are invisible from the outside
the data used to build scientific consensus is based upon experiences of differing qualia. i agree that it is not capable of interrogating those qualia themselves (which it is dependent upon), but there is no sense in which it is divorced from them.

[Anonymous No.17618527]

>>17618483
>>17618500
do you disagree that a computer with no consciousness at all could, at least in theory, use and further build upon the scientific model via mechanical observational tools?

[Anonymous No.17618534]

>>17618498
it is impossible. you would have to redefine 'physics' way past the boundaries of its current meaning (the study of matter in terms of mathematical relationships) in order to account for qualia. it would only be possible to give a physical description of qualia if we accept a very loose definition of 'physics' that includes potential future revolutions in the field that take the term way beyond its current range of meanings.

[Anonymous No.17618548]

>>17618527
Maybe, we don't actually know

[Anonymous No.17618555]

>>17618548
what would prevent it from doing so if it could collect observational data and was programmed to follow the scientific method?

[Anonymous No.17618566]

>>17618555
We wouldn't know if it were conscious for one thing, for another we ourselves couldn't know about the existence of such a machine except through our consciousness, and we don't actually have an example of this machine yet.

[Anonymous No.17618574]

>>17618527
instinctively it does not make sense to me but to be honest it is difficult to explain why. the most obvious thing i could point out is that both the computer itself and the program it is following required consciousness to be developed in the first place - so im not sure that is really an example of scientific consensus being achieved without consciousness.

would this computer have the ability to revise its methods? or would it keep plugging away with our current embedded assumptions indefinitely or until its destroyed or reaches some kind of end point? if the computer cant discover or hypothesize things that cause it to revise its methods, then i am not convinced it is really engaging in 'the scientific method' that humans have actually engaged in. If it can do those things, I think the boundaries between computational processes and conscious processes would start to become very blurry. I feel like the computer would soon develop aspects that went far beyond description in terms of transistor states.

[Anonymous No.17618581]

I've just read the Stanford's qualia article and I don't understand what makes qualia more "non-physical" than, for example, imagination
can anyone help?

[Anonymous No.17618613]

>>17617992
A mystic might have empirical evidence of God's existence, although not scientific evidence.

>>17618007
That was what started this though. Some anon just blasted an ugly, long blob of old Buddhist text.

[Anonymous No.17618617]

>>17618581
the point of using the word qualia is that its quite a well understood shorthand for the EXPERIENCE OF perceiving x as opposed to the mechanical processes that go in on your brain when you perceive x. Imagination can be, like many other things, be correlated to certain transfers of electrons in the human brain, but there is also the EXPERIENCE OF imagining things (which is the qualia-side of things)

[Anonymous No.17618648]

>>17618566
you're not answering the question: what even in theory would prevent it from doing so taking its non consciousness as a given?

>>17618574
AI has already come a long way and can do some very impressive albeit limited things so I don't find it inconceivable to be a real thing some day, but I think the fundamental issue here is that you and the other anon are confusing the scientific model and the scientific perspective. the model is just that, a structure created as its own thing like any other created thing whereas the scientific perspective or method when done by humans are that model actualized through a (presumably) conscious subject. this no more says that the scientific model is rooted in conscious experience than a tree is rooted in conscious experience because we only know it through perception. even if you believed something like that you'd still have to admit that it is only the appearance of the tree, analogous to the scientific perspective in this case, not the abstract notion of the tree itself that is rooted in experience.

[Anonymous No.17618668]

>>17617354
>Literally no amount of evidence can prove materialism.

Yes.

>The fact of phenomenal experience alone makes it self-evidently wrong.

No.

[Anonymous No.17618678]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally
Opinion discarded. Learn how to write like a grown man.

[Anonymous No.17618691]

>>17618648
to clarify on that last sentence: I am saying that claiming the abstract notion of the tree itself is fundamentally rooted in experience because it is known primarily via experience is wrong because not only is the abstraction more than the appearance but the tree we assume to be "out there" in some sense also affects and interacts with other things and thus can't be seen only rooted in the appearance of the tree. there's more to it than that and you're being overly reductive to say otherwise which is scientifically useless.

[Anonymous No.17618696]

>>17618648
>taking its non consciousness as a given?
You can't do that though

[Anonymous No.17618698]

>>17618648
>the model is just that, a structure created as its own thing like any other created thing
if there is indeed a physical reality independent of human beings and their experiences of it, then trees would continue to exist if every single conscious subject died tomorrow. the 'scientific model' certainly would not continue to have any existence within the world. there is a very religious, almost platonic, undertone to your argument that is very amusing to read.

[Anonymous No.17618716]

>>17618691
you are equating noumena known through experience with concepts that are reified through action. doesn't make sense at all to equate the experience of trees with the acting out of scientific methodologies.

[Anonymous No.17618783]

>>17616746
To convince people that consciousness is purely physical you would have to create a model, or even better a machine, that can predict all aspect of human behaviour with 100% or near 100% accuracy.
This includes their thoughts, movements, instinctual reactions and every single word leaving their mouth.
Essentially any human would be reduced to a machine whose every action/thought can be directly linked to a physical phenomenon.
Of course philosophers would just come up with some reason why this does not make them p-zombies. But then you can just point them to whatever stimulus caused that thought.

[Anonymous No.17618785]

>>17618696
you'll have to argue for why consciousness is required for the scientific method then, because this feels like begging the question

>>17618698
see my clarification post. I am by no means a platonist nor am I religious, but you are making assumption about the nature of things existing that cannot be proven because all we have seems to be abstractions or some sort or another.

>>17618716
not noumena, abstractions that we use to construct our experience world beyond just the experiences themselves. this is not very different than constructing the scientific model to explain or understand things beyond being just appearances.

[Anonymous No.17618816]

>>17618648
>you and the other anon are confusing the scientific model and the scientific perspective. the model is just that, a structure created as its own thing like any other created thing
no, the scientific model is a human construction. it would not be necessary to use the scientific model if, for example, we had a way of accessing the internal states of other things. human experience is a fundamental part of the structure of the 'scientific model'.

[Anonymous No.17618847]

>>17618816
the model can be considered a real thing insofar as any other thing humans talk about can. to what extent that really is doesn't matter here

[Anonymous No.17619004]

why would qualia have to be communicable in terms of the physical in order for it to be a purely physical process

[Anonymous No.17619133]

>>17616836
I'm not trying to argue, I genuinely want to understand how not to think this way.
I guess what I'm confused about is that biochemical processes can and have yielded a variety of phenomena. Is it that unreasonable to think that they could bring about consciousness? Sure we don't have any concrete evidence for either side of the argument yet, but we know very little about the brain. Neuroscience is an emerging field in the grand scheme of things, and to say that there's no possible biochemical explanation for consciousness doesn't seem fair when we haven't even scratched the surface. In the past few decades alone, scientific research has been able to attribute many aspects of cognition (mainly pathologic conditions though) directly to neurochemical processes. Given the trend, why is it so unreasonable to think consciousness might be revealed to be a physical process?

[Anonymous No.17619220]

>>17619133
>>17618276
I guess what I mean is, we don't have all the variables pertaining to cognition, which is why scientists believe we're not able to model consciousness or describe it biochemically yet. There's millions of genes with unidentified roles as of now. But as we move closer to cataloguing all of them (probably not in our lifetimes), what do you guys think would happen?

[Anonymous No.17619234]

>>17619220
also means to reply to >>17616836

[Anonymous No.17619251]

>>17616836
>>17619133
>>17618276
I guess what I mean is, we don't have all the variables pertaining to cognition, which is why scientists believe we're not able to model consciousness or describe it biochemically yet. There's millions of genes with unidentified roles as of now. But as we move closer to cataloguing all of them (probably not in our lifetimes), what do you guys think would happen?

[Anonymous No.17619304]

>>17618078
>That's all consciousness is
you need to prove that, you're just reasoning in circles, "i'm the brain because the brain is me"

[Anonymous No.17619350]

>>17618070
nobody says it's material, they argue that it's a reaction / process. You can't measure the extension, volume, or mass of the process of two ions joining. You can infer the speed or efficiency of the process though, as we can do for cognition

[Anonymous No.17619366]

>>17616746
>What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process
It would take some actual proof. Which does not exist. It would also have to account for all the experiences of non-local awareness that are factually documented.

[Anonymous No.17619377]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?
It is impossible. This couldnt be achieved in the time it would take for the sun to achieve heat death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNbl-g8QoAg

[Anonymous No.17619734]

>>17618050
Do you wanna know why it says physicalism and not materialism? It is because they could never find a satisfying definition of matter.

[Anonymous No.17619781]

>>17617171
Have you read him?

[Anonymous No.17619786]

>>17619377
cringe

[Anonymous No.17619797]

>>17617237
But it's all they have!

[Anonymous No.17620013]

>>17619133
It does "bring about" consciousness, but that does not mean it IS consciousness. It's the fallacy of composition. Just because something is made (or grounded by) a given substance, doesn't mean that it IS that substance. The whole does not necessarily share a likeness with the parts. It's like the property of wetness, no h2o molecule is individually wet.

There certainly is a very strong relationship between conscious states and brain activity, but no neuron is conceivably conscious, and it is hard to see how electrochemical signals are conscious.

It goes back to Leibniz windmill metaphor and his gap problem:

>It must be confessed, moreover, that perception, and that which depends on it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions, And, supposing that there were a mechanism so constructed as to think, feel and have perception, we might enter it as into a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to explain a perception. This must be sought, therefore, in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine.

You can't ever "find" conscious states in the brain. Perhaps it might be feasible to translate certain brain states into a "language" from which you can derive a semantics of consciousness (brain state R corresponds to the perception of red, Y to yellow) and think of consciousness as 'sentences" composed of this language. Even then such a symbolic processing does not invite consciousness into the equation.

A full understanding of neurobiological mechanisms does not obviously seem to entail a full understanding of what conscious states are. Granted this is a conjecture because we do not have such a full understanding (perhaps no single person can). But this does not evade the problem of why we have consciousness at all everything that happens in the brain is perfectly mechanistic.

[Anonymous No.17620032]

>>17620013
thank you anon that was what I was looking for

[Anonymous No.17620074]

>>17620013
do you have any reading you can suggest on this topic? Preferably ones that touch on our current neurobiological understanding

[Anonymous No.17620126]

>>17620074
Off the top of my head:
Much of what I say is heavily influenced by David Chalmers. His book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, is a solid overview of the problems of consciousness. After all he was the one who coined the phrase the "hard problem of consciousness."

If you want to see the lengths to which some will go to try to explain it in terms of physics, I suggest The Emperor's New Mind by Rodger Penrose. He advances an odd if ingenious theory that tries to explain consciousness in terms of quantum gravity or something inside microtubules of the brain cell's cytoskeleton.

But I would go with Chalmer's book, it's really one of the best reviews of the subject on the shelves.

[Anonymous No.17620135]

>>17616746
Interaction with the physical world is always mediated through our mind. All we experience is our consciousness. I’ve never seen a materialist refute this.

[Anonymous No.17620245]

>>17618245
>I read the whole thing. Absolute sophistry
holy shit anon, you've done him.

[Anonymous No.17620330]

>>17620126
thank you! I see that a neuron, action potential, or any neurobiological mediator / process that we have identified could not constitute consciousness itself, but my thoughts were that consciousness was a specific, fine-tuned interplay of billions of neurobiological mediators and therefore could not be attributed to a single physical phenomenon or modeled during our lifetime. But independently, each mediator / process could be physical. We are just unable to identify and arrange each component into the exact configuration that is consciousness. So a single mediator / process cannot be conscious, but the specific interaction of countless unique physical phenomena might be. I’m going to do some reading and try to challenge these ideas because I’ve been genuinely lost as to where to start. Thank you again

[Anonymous No.17620630]

>>17617237
>Why do you feel compelled to vomit walls of text about your death cult in every thread you can find?
Because Buddhism is the Borg of eastern philosophy, it robs people of critical thought and turns them into mindless proselytizers

[Anonymous No.17621263]

>>17618165
Actually, if everybody would experience God by, say, literally hearing a voice in their heads that is not their own, is would be proven. Of course, the debate would then be if this voice really is God or not just a biochemical process.

[Anonymous No.17621322]

>>17618847
God?

[Anonymous No.17621347]

>>17618527
In the end, for the findings of the computer/machine to become scientific consensus humans must see the results.

[Anonymous No.17621353]

>>17616746
What difference would it make? Surely people must by proxy have already accepted that its the case because the chemicals are what make those thoughts regardless what the thoughts are, because the thoughts aren't 'real' right? Sorry man, I don't get it. It seems like one's two choices for existing are accept literally any dogmatic thought system or just simply exist with the ebb and flow of reality. Categorization is just categorization. It adds appearance and takes appearance but it doesn't really fundamentally change what is taking place. If your position implies an agenda, which I really 'feel' and 'think' that it does, then its more or less no different than any other system.

[Anonymous No.17621361]

>>17616746

in order of consubstantiality:
>the material world (as seen as external to the individual)
>the senses that take in the material world
>consciousness
>the soul
stay foolish brainlets, materialists, and other various forms of filth

[Anonymous No.17621710]

>>17616746
To be honest anon, just one thing would be enough. I must be able to introspectively recognize that the phenomenal qualities I am acquainted with are literally reducible to microphysical properties. I cannot imagine such a thing happening though, and the reductive materialists tend to admit it will never happen, so I think there's just nothing that will convert me to their side. But that's what I'd say it would take.

[Anonymous No.17622550]

>>17617237
triggered af

[Anonymous No.17622567]

>>17619133
There is no ''we''. It's even proved by science.

[Anonymous No.17622580]

>>17618617
>>the point of using the word qualia is that its quite a well understood shorthand for the EXPERIENCE OF perceiving x
THe problem with this language is that all the objective part of this experience is put on X and so when two people use this X in their sentence,, it leads the audience believing they talk about the same thing, whereas there is no guarantee at all about this.

[Anonymous No.17622614]

>>17617691
Don't expect them to ever understand what you mean. They're cultists and dogmatists all of them.

[Anonymous No.17622706]

I'm becoming convinced that people who reject the hard problem are actual unironic philosophical zombies. Otherwise they'd know what we're talking about.

[Anonymous No.17622707]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware?
you can't do that, no one will ever be able to even ape that, and you have no idea about the formation of life to begin with.

also, simulation isn't the same as reality, because it uses just uses simple mathematics and scientific models. so it would in fact prove nothing anyway.

btw saying consciousness could be identified with some material thing means nothing because you have not addressed it in its own terms or explained it whatsoever. i don't even think people deny what you say, so you are missing the point and considering a strawman.

[Anonymous No.17622718]

>>17617867
the problem is your material reduction exists as much as the perception of red exists, and each one fails to the explain the other.

[Anonymous No.17622784]

>>17622706
Yeah I came around to this conclusion years ago. I don't even bother with these threads anymore.

[Anonymous No.17622966]

>>17616746
When the chemicals in your brain are arranged in a certain way, that brainstate causes you to feel, say, fear. Is your brain afraid? Or are you?

[Anonymous No.17623071]

>>17616746
>What would it take
Have a basic education and don't be a schizo
/lit/ really went down the shitter

[Anonymous No.17623128]

>>17617867
and why is it called the red cone?

[Anonymous No.17623140]

>>17617156
The rare case of being redpilled (correct) but cringe. (Arguing like a fag)

[Anonymous No.17623146]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware
Do it faggot. Protip: you cant

[Anonymous No.17623171]

>>17623128
it's activiated by light frequencies within the wave-length range that is correlated with the qualia of seeing the color red

[Anonymous No.17623179]

>>17623146
Even if he could, wouldn't the very act of an intelligent designer creating intelligent life support the notion of intelligent design?

I'd be much more impressed if OP put a petri dish in a sterile environment, did nothing, and woke up one morning to find that organisms had spontaneously appeared and then randomly evolved into intelligent beings.

[Anonymous No.17623190]

>>17618165
Big difference is not everyone has had a religious experience, certainly not definitive doubt-free ones. The claim of simply one having ones own subjective experience of living life is attested to by everyone who can form sentences.

[Anonymous No.17623267]

>>17622718
Physicalism is explanatory and predictive though. It's you who has no actionable alternative theory.

[Anonymous No.17623282]

>>17623171
Well clearly you understand why the existence of certain cones does not actually explain what "redness" is or why we are able to experience it, but just partly explains the physical process of how. I'll reply no more.

[Anonymous No.17623283]

>>17623267
it doesnt explain qualia. it may explain what creates it but not how it creates it or what it is in the first place. you cant point to qualia outside your own. you can only point to what creates it. this is the problem with physicalism

[Anonymous No.17623314]

>>17617691
But there is a physicalist explanation for what 'qualia' actually are (trope theory). The fact that experience is our conduit to everything doesn't preclude experience being phsyical itself. What would it even mean for something to be 'non-physical'? I can point to an fMRI of specific brain activity of a subject experiencing stimuli, can you point to a 'gap' between experience and the brain?

The 'hard problem' only exists because you are mysticizing 'qualia'. It is entirely possible that what we call 'qualia' are a subset of quanta, and in fact there is no specific alternative hypothesis.

[Anonymous No.17623350]

>>17623283
No, you are assuming the gap between experience and matter/energy ("what creates it"). That is your sleight of hand. There is no demonstrable gap, however.

You assert that I can't measure someone else's experience, but you don't actually know that, you're just pointing out a technical uncertainty which can never be resolved. Well, if you really believe we should confine ourselves to only apodictic truths, then you might as well give up on both science and philosophy, because 'external' knowledge is impossible for you.

[Anonymous No.17623370]

>>17616746
consciousness is a sociological phenomenon

[Anonymous No.17623376]

>>17623350
The chart is not the event
The map is not the territory
The report is not the experience

The former are very important to a program of research, the latter are what that program is embedded in. Obviously there is a gap, you just claim it is inconsequential.

[Anonymous No.17623380]

>>17622550
Case in point

[Anonymous No.17623412]

>>17623376
Well that's nice rhetoric and all, but if you can't posit the specifics of an alternative theory or explain how your selective skepticism isn't disingenuous, then your argument is entirely hollow.

[Anonymous No.17623655]

>>17616836
>Consciousness ISN'T a biochemical process, otherwise that would assume biochemicals have consciousness.
Electrolysis ISN'T a chemical process, otherwise that would assume chemicals have electrolysis.

[Anonymous No.17623850]

>>17616746
>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware?

You can't even assemble Ikea furniture.

[Anonymous No.17623860]

>>17623350
>You assert that I can't measure someone else's experience
>you're just pointing out a technical uncertainty which can never be resolved

So...you can't measure someone else's experience?

[Anonymous No.17623868]

>>17623350
>because 'external' knowledge is impossible for you.

Not only knowledge, but the "external" world and the very idea of "external" are themselves impossible.

[Anonymous No.17624196]

>>17616746
Just take the panpsychism pill.

[Anonymous No.17624330]

>>17622567
really? what do you mean?

[Anonymous No.17624336]

>>17623412
My alternative theory? We are actively conscious of our surroundings and self-awareness is a meaningful state that can be investigated in numerous ways. that we have this subjective experience at all suggests all living processes have such an experience to some degree, not that we alone possess a special delusion of being an individual aware of it's own awareness.

[Anonymous No.17624375]

>>17622706
Philosophical zombie, hylic, NPC, normie, sheep, lemmings. It's all the same

[Anonymous No.17624390]

>>17624375
and all a cope

[Anonymous No.17624393]

>>17623655
This ISN'T a good analogy

[Anonymous No.17624438]

>>17624390
What is a cope?

[Anonymous No.17624462]

>>17624375
Everything but total physicalism is just silly. Just grow up people.

[Anonymous No.17624468]

>>17624462
Why's it silly?

[Anonymous No.17624480]

>>17624468
Not him, but because any other view lacks fundamental self-awareness.