/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3135091
This

It's a chemical reaction

see: thalamus.

>>3135091
I figured as much, but why do we experience it instead of nothing..

>>3135096
Evolutionary advantage.

>>3135096
wat?

>>3135100
Can you explain? :E

>>3135107
We dominate the planet.

I just copy paste this you may have seen it before.

Consciousness is entirely dependent on the nervous system. All creatures perceive reality uniquely. Organisms are able to detect a stimulus and react to it.
The venus fly trap, although plants lack a nervous system, has to have its hair follicles touched twice for it to close and trap a victim. If it were only once, energy may be wasted on a false alarm. Other organisms like worms closer resemble an autonamous system than a dog but the basic principle is identical.

This is not to say all members of a species think the same. Humans vary greatly in brain structures and therefore cognitive abilities. In synaesthesia some people experience vibrant colours when they hear sounds or see numbers; clearly not everyone can do this- they must experience reality differently. Reality belongs to the subject hence the term subjectivity.

Computers (AI) of the morrow will view things with potentially enormous complexity. They may exist already. Von Neumann machines, which travel through space, possess a complex synthetic autonamous system (AI). On Earth, scientists claim AI to be with us within the century.

Life a.k.a consciousness is the inevitable conclusion to the laws that govern us. We are clumps
of matter with a devised way of sustaining the integrity of an entity.

>>3135108
Then do we dominate the universe?

>>3135107
We're a social species largely dependent on cooperation to achieve certain goals, and things like the ability to feel empathy, or self-awareness are advantageous for this sort of cooperation. When I understand myself and my feelings, I might understand you and your feelings, and vice versa, and from this common ground of mutual understanding, we can lay a cooperative foundation to build an atom bomb.

So when you die, do you just become another consciousness?

>>3135127
Unknown, but there's absolutely no reason to assume this to be the case. Nothing supports such a hypothesis. After all, the consciousness is not some tangible, static thing; it's processes and reactions in the brain. If you wanted to preserve a specific consciousness, you'd have to preserve that person's brain (and it neurochemical state).

>>3135140
*its

>>3135127
do you mean in another body with no previous recollection of your past conscious? it's an interesting idea which i have thought about before, but theres no evidence of that possibility in any form that i know of. so i highly doubt it and when we die our consciousness most likely goes away beyond the point of return when enough of our brain decays

>>3135110
posts like these leave me thinking about life and the universe, and that no matter how much i learn or ponder i will always be amazed.

if you think education is expensive, calculate ignorance.

Consciousness is not an illusion. But it is virtual.

>>3135202

>THIS

>>3135202
What does that even mean?

>>3135240
Presumably that consciousness is not an illusion, but it's not a physical, corporeal thing either.

>>3135202
Correct.

>>3135240
The same way Softwares are not illusions. They are th e product of interactions between material objects. Similarly consciousness is interaction itself not the interacting body.

Sure is edgy hipster in here.
>>3135086
If it's an illusion, what is observing the illusion?
>>3135091
How do chemical reactions cause consciousness? Why aren't we philosophical zombies?

>>3135240

They mean conciousness is like a simulation run by the brain.

In a simulated, virtual world, you are not bound by the laws of nature. Within the confines of the simulation, you can program anything you want to be "true" (set gravity all weird, mess around with anything you want).

Simmilarly, by creating the virtual world of concious experience, the brain can make things be possible that could never be possible in the real world (i.e all the things neccesary for coherant subjective experience), you feel like you are a concious being experiencing the world subjectively, because in the virtual world the mind creates for us , this is one of the "fundamental laws of nature". These "laws" don't have to make sense all the way down to the quantum level (like they would in the real world), because they're virtual, they can be programmed right into the fabric of the virtual world to be self evident truths.

Yes, our concious minds live inside a virtual reality created by the brain, we don't directly observe the outside (and possible "real") world, we only recieve heavily-filtered and proccessed information about it from the rest of the brain.

>>3135352
>Why aren't we philosophical zombies?
Are you implying that we aren't?

>>3135352
>Sure is edgy hipster in here.
Have a point.

>Why aren't we philosophical zombies?
see
>>3135117

>>3135360
Though not irrelevant all this is unnecessary. The purpose of consciousness is without a doubt beyond scope of a debate in a Darwinian setting.

Any discussion of its object is thus useless.

>>3135365
We aren't. Not by the definition of "philosophical zombie" I'm familiar with, anyway. I mean, we do possess a sense of self-awareness. Processing outside stimuli isn't all our brains are capable of. We're capable of inflection, conceptual though, empathy, and all that.

>>3135396
>conceptual though
*thought

>>3135396
Trufax.

Self-awareness is an emergent phenomenon misconstrued as illusion by modern 'philosophers'.

>>3135396
>We're capable of inflection, conceptual though, empathy, and all that.

Perhaps you believe you are. But take a look at the state of the world and just reflect on whether everybody else is capable of introspection or empathy.

>>3135408
There are ideal concepts and there are real people. You are confusing between the two. people can embody ideal concepts momentarily proving that ideal concepts can exist, but I doubt anybody can embody them forever.

inb4: Chalmers' zombie argument.

lol @ /sci/ doing philosophy

>>3135440
>hurr

Science is Philosophy. Or at least what philosophy should be.

consciousness cannot be an illusion, otherwise you would not be able to consciously think about if it is an illusion or not.

>>3135446
I can understand the sentiments behind that statement, but I can't agree.
Philosophy grounds science, although many of the questions it asks are empirical, the conceptual questions can only be solved by philosophy.

>>3135361
Evolution doesn't create anything, the laws of physics and were the same before and after evolution started happening. Evolution doesn't explain consciousness.

Everything you have said has no logic behind it, I think I'm free to speculate on what subjective motivations you have for saying such humiliating things.
>>3135365
I am directly experiencing consciousness, this fact is as absolute as any scientific fact, the only reason you are picking out "consciousness" as opposed to the results of an experiment is because you think it's shocking.

>>3135460
inb4 Conan.

>>3135446
Science is the application of relevant philosophies that accurately describe our world.
The school of philosophy as a whole is a hodge podge of thought experiments and bullshit.

>>3135471
Actually, Aristotle the great grand-father of modern philosophy was the first conceptual scientist. He used thought experiments to come up with the basis of scientific method.


>>3135461

Not true. Science can also deal with 'conceptual' data. In fact it does. One way its done is mathematics.

>>3135464
Oh come on, "I'm experiencing consciousness directly". You'll have to do better than that.
For one, "consciousness" could be a partially referring term to the emergent system of cognitive processes in your brain. In which case "consciousness" is just a unifying concept like "house", because houses can be reduced to their constituent parts.
Secondly, leaving consciousness loosely defined is a classical philosophical mistake: "oh, it's just that feeling you have corresponding to mental states that makes them your mental states". In no way is that a functional definition of consciousness (the sort of definitions scientists love).

>>3135408
>Perhaps you believe you are.
Well, all of this can be empirically evaluated. I don't have to rely on what I personally believe or experience.

>But take a look at the state of the world and just reflect on whether everybody else is capable of introspection or empathy.
The state of the (human) world supports my position, actually. All of our societal structures, laws and social norms are derived from our abilities to conceptualize, empathize and introspect (not "inflect" as I brazenly said; sorry). I assume your criticism is a reference to all the deliberate suffering and injustices caused by humans, but if so, then I don't really see the argument. An imperfect civilization doesn't demonstrate a complete absence of the ability to empathize; just that this ability is not of some divine perfection. It's not the most dominant feeling in all of us either. We're also motivated by selfishness, etc., but those "negative" motivations give even more credence to the notion that we are *not* philosophical zombies.

>>3135464
>Evolution doesn't create anything, the laws of physics and were the same before and after evolution started happening. Evolution doesn't explain consciousness.
I didn't say anything to the contrary, you strawmanning douche. I said that consciousness is evolutionarily advantageous.

Again, have a fucking point. Preferably one that actually addresses what I said.

>>3135490
>evolutionary advantage

If you are going to loose your head against this comment please don't reply:

There is nothing called 'evolutionary' advantage. There is only survival. It does not depend on how many dicks, brains or appendages you have. It depends on environment. This advantage term is a byproduct of thinking (mistakenly) that environment is a constant (or changes sufficiently slowly). Its seemingly correct because for US environment is an approximate constant. But you know that its not the absolute case.

>>3135480
Oh come on, "light exists". You'll have to do better than that.
For one, "light" could be a partially referring term to magnetic and electric fields oscillating perpendicular to each other. In which case "light" is just a way of classifying a conglomeration of constituent parts like "house", in reality I'm not in a house, I live in the cold mud and wipe my ass with my hand, I just delude myself into thinking I'm in a house.

Wow, fuck, I'm so edgy, I just shocked you out of your shell didn't I normy! Conformist! Sheeple! Hot dang, I'm such a fucking edgy hipster, I'm going to jerk off in front of a mirror now, brb.

>>3135502
*lose

(fuckkkk)

>>3135502
>If you are going to loose your head against this comment please don't reply:
Why should I? You merely articulated what I meant by "evolutionarily advantageous" in a more verbose way. Our species adapted to the environment by developing these immense cognitive abilities, including our consciousness. That's literally all I intended to say, and I'm not really sure why you interpreted it to mean something different.

>>3135516
>Our species adapted to the environment by developing these immense cognitive abilities, including our consciousness.

Because of the above statement. Its blatantly wrong. It shows that you do not understand Darwinian evolution sufficiently well.

>>3135478
Well that's where the distinction between philosophy and actual science lies. So Aristotle provided a model which was built upon and refined. Many philosophies (thought experiments) lead nowhere and are just representing something that can be better defined by another philosophical idea.

>If I say "edgy" and "hipster" often enough, then maybe it'll turn into an actual argument

>>3135521
I do not understand you. Care to explain in detail?

>>3135520
>Its blatantly wrong.
Elaborate. Nothing I said contradicts anything you have said (or anything the theory of evolution states, for that matter), so I'm having a hard time understanding your objection.

>It shows that you do not understand Darwinian evolution sufficiently well.
Come on now. Explain your point, but spare me the condescension.

>>3135524
And before this: Let me make it very very clear. Conceptualization or thought experiments are essential parts of scientific method. The empiricism simply helps to choose one such concept over other.

A better question, can we have consciousness without having free will?

>>3135507
light = stream of photons is a theoretical identity statement, there's no partial reference there. My point with consciousness is is that you have the intuition, not the proof.
By partial reference of consciousness, I'm talking about the fact that it might not actually refer to a thing with a single scientific essence (which light has).

LRN2philosophy of language and science

>>3135529
That's a terrible question, but the answer is yes. That's exactly what we have right now.

>>3135527
Fair enough.

Darwinian evolution states that the only advantage you actually have in the process of selection is large numbers and ability to develop inheritable variation. Rest is up to the environment.

I refuse your argument on the following basis: Evolutionary advantage through a operative/functional means beyond those mentioned above is null and void unless a given environment exists to actually prefer it. Consciousness is hardly an absolute advantage. e.g. if the sun were to go suddenly nova, consciousness as an advantage would be useless to survive relatively better than other species.

Absolute advantages are those which are available to act faster than the response of the environment for all environments. And that *may* be impossible.

>>3135531
I would say that it depends on your definition of free-will. The magical free-will is of course non-existent.

>>3135536
>Consciousness is hardly an absolute advantage. e.g. if the sun were to go suddenly nova, consciousness as an advantage would be useless to survive relatively better than other species.
But I already addressed that in my very first post in this thread. See:
>>3135117
Most of our coping with environmental/natural pressures is based on cooperation, and a sense of self and the ability to understand others makes cooperation significantly easier, allowing for much more complex operations. If we were faced with a cataclysmic event, then our cognition and our ability to cooperate would actually be the -only- things of use to us that could help with our survival. We could conceptualize and build bunkers, or something like that; you get the idea. Why wouldn't you consider this an absolute advantage?

>>3135555
No. I wouldn't. Are you suggesting that we know all solutions to all problems today? Once we do then perhaps you would be right.

That would have to include Andromeda strains too.

>>3135528
Since Aristotle's ideas about logical deductionism this has been developed by todays understanding of neuroscience and how the brain works. Similarly, his ideas about the elements has been refined into the standard model of atoms, quarks, etc. His original published philosophies are not entirely wrong but they resembled a greater truth which took centuries to develop into the way we see them today.

Countless times through history have models that were taken to be the unquestionable truth which were then refuted on grounds of new evidence. In context of modern science, string theory comes along to say the standard model is just representing tiny vibrating strings. Even if this were true, we'd still use the philosophy of Newtonian mechanics and the standard model for practical purposes.

'Bad science' or 'good philosophy' at university level is what gets philosophy a bad rep because many of the ideas explored aren't just a little wrong but go off on a complete tangent (lke the existence of the soul in lieu of a physical explanation)

>>3135561
All nice and great. But what was the point?

My only point was that Science is the rightful owner of the title of philosophy of reality. Of course its possible to poetically wander off into pink clouds and blue unicorns, but to stress that it make sense to others is moronic.

How I understand it is when we observe our surroundings we make subconscious deductions about them based on the frequency of the visible light that enters our eyes(colors explained as a method of differentiation between materials) and perceive the shape and texture of the objects around us. There is more that goes into it but essentially we can very quickly classify things that we see by recognizing them as similar to other things we have seen, and then our mind draws conclusions about those things such as what element/s they consist of and their assumed mass. After all traits of your surroundings observable on the visible spectrum have been taken into account your mind places an object with those traits in your virtual world. The error is that any additional traits of the surroundings that were not directly observable on the visible spectrum are just as real as the traits we can identify and actively use for deductions about our environment. Luckily we have developed tools to measure other relevant data(observable with modern science) to draw more accurate conclusions but what we see is still a virtual reality of conjured objects associated with our surroundings

>>3135360
>>3135360
How I understand it is when we observe our surroundings we make subconscious deductions about them based on the frequency of the visible light that enters our eyes(colors explained as a method of differentiation between materials) and perceive the shape and texture of the objects around us. There is more that goes into it but essentially we can very quickly classify things that we see by recognizing them as similar to other things we have seen, and then our mind draws conclusions about those things such as what element/s they consist of, their assumed mass, etc.

>>3135558
>Are you suggesting that we know all solutions to all problems today?
No, but that's a non sequitur anyway. Nothing has to be perfect in order to be an advantage. You said that our cognitive abilities would not help us cope with extreme disasters any better than other species, but that's just demonstrably false. They most definitely do, which is why those abilities are an advantage we have over all other species.

>>3135530
You're right, I couldn't prove to a philosophical that consciousness exists, but then I don't have to, I'm observing the evidence continuously since I am a conscious being.

Are you telling me I should ignore facts just because I can't prove them in a repeatable experiment?

You can prove self-awareness is unnecessary for consciousness and you can prove phlogiston is not a form of light trapped inside flammable materials, these are all relevant and should be discussed in depth but if you're just going to prance around saying "lol consciousness is an illusion, time is an illusion, there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysed symmetry of scale, transversality, pathic non-discursive character expansionism: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously" then it's obvious it's a waste of time.

I propose to you gentlemen and ladies:
PAIN.
Please consider this for a moment. Mammalian pain is the most cruel evolutionary necessity. Why is pain relevant to consciousness? GTFO /sci/ if you can't put the two together as mutually beneficial. ...and I say 'beneficial' with my tongue firmly in my cheek. Awareness! Pain!

>>3135360
How I understand it is when we observe our surroundings we make subconscious deductions about them based on the frequency of the visible light that enters our eyes(colors explained as a method of differentiation between materials) and perceive the shape and texture of the objects around us. There is more that goes into it but essentially we can very quickly classify things that we see by recognizing them as similar to other things we have seen, and then our mind draws conclusions about those things such as what element/s they consist of, their assumed mass, etc. After all traits of your surroundings observable on the visible spectrum have been taken into account your mind draws a conclusion and places an object with those traits in your virtual world. The error is that any additional traits of the surroundings that were not directly observable on the visible spectrum are just as real as the traits we can identify and actively use for deductions about our environment. Luckily we have developed tools to measure other relevant data(observable with modern science) to draw more accurate conclusions but what we see is still a virtual reality of conjured objects associated with our surroundings

>Is it an illusion?
For it to be an illusion you'd first need a non-illusory consciousness to observe the illusion.

>>3135539
What is "magical free will"?

>>3135587
It's kind of a shitty "fact" if it's not falsifiable.

>>3135576
Sorry to let you know, but 'I tried' is not the valid measure of success in evolutionary theory. The answer is survival.

>>3135595
>What is "magical free will"?
Acausal/contra-causal will.

>>3135595
The idea that human will to decide is somehow independent of history of the person. And by history I don't mean social history alone.

>>3135601
Another non sequitur. You seem to be replying to implications I don't make. At all. Again, our cognitive abilities are demonstrably advantageous. They help us survive, not die trying.

>>3135609
I give up. You win. All right?

>>3135600
Facts are not supposed to be falsifiable. If something is falsifiable, it is not a fact.

>>3135593
> Mammalian pain is the most cruel evolutionary necessity. Why is pain relevant to consciousness? GTFO /sci/ if you can't put the two together as mutually beneficial. ...and I say 'beneficial' with my tongue firmly in my cheek. Awareness! Pain!
Is this some kind of problem for you? Pain helps you prevent damage to your body, and awareness helps with all kinds of intelligent processes. Combine them, and we come up with shit like vaccines.

You all philosophically butthurt that life can be uncomfortable at times? Get over it.
Here's what happens when people can't feel pain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain#Presentation
>Children with this condition often suffer oral cavity damage both in and around the oral cavity (such as having bitten off the tip of their tongue) or fractures to bones. Unnoticed infections and corneal damage due to foreign objects in the eye are also seen. Because the child cannot feel pain they may not respond to problems, thus being at a higher risk of more severe diseases or otherwise.

>>3135602
The idea of free will is that it is self-causal, or has a self-causal component. If it were acausal, you couldn't call it will.

>>3135613
Bullshit. Falsifiable = If it *were* false, it could be demonstrated to be so. It doesn't mean something *is* false.

>>3135618
You are right and I believe that its high time that we change the definition to support morality.

>>3135624
http://lastubermensch.blogspot.com/2010/11/free-will.html

>>3135610
Man, I really think you misinterpreted quite a bit of what I said, including my attitude towards you. This may have been a bit frustrating overall, but I wasn't arguing for the sake of it, or to be confrontational, but because you struck me as a reasonable guy, so your objection and subsequent responses simply confused me.

Anyway, I'm all for putting an end to this, too.

>>3135620
Yes, but if something is a fact it is inherently impossible to falsify it, no matter what other facts you may accumulate. To further fact can change the original fact you've gathered. So facts are unfalsifiable. Facts can't be falsified because they make no statements or predictions about further facts you may gather.

>>3135635
Name one fact that's unfalsifiable.

>>3135631
OK. Saying that consciousness is a 'better' way of solving problem means nothing in evolution. Does it yield results? Does it lead to survival? are the real questions. Please do not treat this statistically by saying that in MORE cases it leads to survival. Why? Because statistical survival is again a dependent upon environment.

While I am arguing this I am in no way opposing that consciousness is a great 'gift'. All I am saying is that its not the final answer. It may be that it will lead to the final answer but its definitely possible for such an answer to emerge even in absence of consciousness.

This is a bit abstract of course. But we ARE discussing abstract things. And there is nothing wrong with that.

>>3135640
Jump from the Eiffel tower naked and survive by landing on the ground.

>>3135600
If your rendition of scientific method requires that I ignore facts because they conflict with your preconceived conclusions then there must be something wrong with your rendition of scientific method.

Try thinking outside the box for once.

>>3135640
I just weighed a penny, and the scale read 3.10 g.