/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9208207
It can't, the only thing science can do is write it off as an illusion and just ignore it, simply because science doesn't have the tools to investigate the subjective.

Consciousness doesn't even exist.

>>9208207
Because our brain is a p=np approximating machine, but with limited processing power, hence the "experiences" which are, in fact, logic and reasoning 'mistakes'.
I quote mistake because I meant 'approximate' in that regard, those 'approximates' allows the brain to process a finite number of data.

>>9208234
>Because our brain is a p=np approximating machine
what does it mean? p=np is either true or false

>>9208388
Quantum decoherence.

>>9208392
I think you are just saying random words

>>9208218
this

>>9208218
Then what am I experiencing right now boyo

You can watch video game footage for decades, mapping out every possible state of the game and deconstructing every mechanic, but still not find evidence that there is a player.

>>9208437
You can watch the player character and realize that it acts rational and tries to achieve a goal, which would suggest that there is in fact a player

>>9208218
>reads words in head in voice of choice
>says it doesn't exist
ok

>>9208446
And people can then argue the player character isn't special, it just has a more advanced AI than the NPCs. They'll be wrong, but they'll still have a point in this context where there's no hard evidence that the player exists

>>9208207
No. §17 in Leibniz's Monadology addresses this.

>>9208218
This is irrelevant, regardless of it being true or false.

>>9208458
>player character isn't special, it just has a more advanced AI than the NPCs.
that's correct

Yes. We're a long way away, but I'm having trouble thinking of any natural phenomena that was unexplainable and eventually wasn't eventually explained by science.

>>9208536
thats jumping to conclusions

A-Are people in this thread conflating free will with conciousness?

>>9208644
How did you detirmine that

Things that make this a really hard question to address:

Out of body experiences, near death experiences, apparition experiences, psi, and memory of past lives phenomena

>>9208644
Many in the "free will is an illusion" camp also believe consciousness is an illusion.

>>9208963
but thats completely retarded.

free will OBVIOUSLY is an illusion, and consciousness OBVIOUSLY is not an illusion. anyone disagreeing with either of those if OBVIOUSLY a retard

>>9208970
nothing obvious about any of that retard

>>9208970
You're assuming there's one consistent definition for "consciousness." That's one of the vaguest, most multi-purposed terms there is. Obviously everyone agrees there's such a thing as "regaining consciousness" where you wake up from anesthesia for example, but not everyone believes you have literal "qualia" / "experience" phenomena beyond your own behavior i.e. you think you "see colors" because reporting and acting in terms of that notion is part of your visual stimuli response behavior rather than because there actually is some phenomenon of "what it's like to see colors" in need of an explanation.

>>9208984
I mean I see your post and its dumbass reasoning, and you're not going to think your way out of that MOST OBVIOUS fact.

The problem from there is how to describe it, not whether or not it is happening.

>>9208990
Sure anon, it's all of physical reality that's wrong because you have a very strong belief that something extra is really there and there's no possible way your brain could just be making you believe something that isn't true because human cognition is 100% accurate to literal reality and never makes use of shortcuts even though the latter would be selected for over the former as a much less costly way to get the same level of evolutionary fitness. I mean, you JUST KNOW, and if you can't count on your personal intuition, what else could you count on? Obviously not the scientific method, that approach never gets us anywhere, all great advancements in science and technology come from going with what seems right to you personally because it JUST DOES.

What is the problem? Your brain gets some input and then acts on it. Do you really need some magic "qualia" to explain how when you see blue wavelengths of light you "experience" blue (what that means and how it is distinguished from simply seeing blue light or your brain processing the light information is very unclear to me. Guess I'm just a brainlet).

>>9208208
Literally /thread

>>9208999
You're so full of shit. Stop reading into what you think I am saying, and read what I am actually saying.

It is the simplest, most obvious empirical observation that I am currently experiencing something. There is no intuition about it. It comes from basic empiricism, one of the foundations of science.

This experience could be something that is created by my brain. There is a lot of evidence for that. My saying that it undeniably exists does not invalidate that, you fucking sperg.

>>9209000
Dualist fags / idealism fags overrate their own personal ingrained biological behaviors around the idea of "experiencing" and as a consequence are convinced this idea represents some actual phenomenon beyond their own behavioral routines that physics is failing to account for. It's pretty narcissistic desu.

>>9209027
But you are undeniably experiencing something. How retarded are you?

>>9209018
Have you ever stopped to consider how extremely "simple" and "obvious" is exactly how things that only exist as a mental narrative would be registered? These "things" have the alleged simple and raw and immediate characteristics to them precisely because there isn't really anything there. You believe you see lots of things you really have no knowledge of when pressed for details in a controlled setting. Perception is more a process of your brain reasoning out how things ought to be than it is an actual presentation of "experiences."

>>9209018
>>9209032
What about your experience makes you think it is anything more than your brain's processing of the sensory inputs you receive?

>>9209062
Why the fuck do you think the two claims are at odds? What is wrong with you?

>>9208207
Huh? It asks how the consciousness works? It works the way it's structured, duh.

>>9209032
You are undeniably basing your entire argument on "I have a very strong belief." You can have a very strong belief in something that isn't actually true. That's all it takes for this "problem" to fall apart: Just recognizing that your brain is completely capable of using false belief as a tool for making useful behavior happen. It's way more plausible the issue is with that belief we're personally geared towards as organisms than it is plausible that our reported belief in this is some indication of a fundamental aspect of reality that transcends physics and causality.

>>9209075
Holy fuck

>>9209027
>>9209056
>>9209062
>>9209075
I am basically just restating cogito ergo sum and you fags are trying to read a bunch of bullshit into it because your reading compehension and reasoning skills are appalling.

I EXIST. I AM AWARE.

My brain probably produces that experience. How? Good question.

>>9209092
And if you want to go Zen on me and say that the I is an illusion,

THERE IS AWARENESS.

Deal with it.

I think p-zombies exist. They resemble human beings in every way except they unironically believe things like this >>9208218

>>9209092
>I am basically just restating cogito ergo sum
Thought and qualia aren't the same thing. Thought is just information processing, not a "hard problem" topic.

>>9209075
You are undeniably basing your entire argument on "current scientific knowledge can't explain it therefore it doesn't exist"

>>9209108
Holy fuck

>>9209092
Cuckito ergo sum anon

>>9209121
I AM THE KEK NOT YOU

>>9209068
The hard problem is all about dualism.
Explain to me where the electrochemical interactions and reactions to stimuli stop and where qualia begins. If you can't you are elevating subjective experience over objective reality with no evidence or reasoning.

If you don't think you're doing this then you are either unclear on implications of the position you're advocating or you're a troll

>>9209225
That's the whole fucking problem you idiot

>>9208207
Consciousness posting should be a bannable offence by now

>>9209270
Why? Because you morons flail helplessly at it?

>>9209225
>science can't currently explain it therefore it either doesn't exist or it's magic

face it senpai we're just brains in skulls doing super cool binary computing interweaved with multiple environmental, biochemical and probabilistic analog layers i think its cool af desu but idk lmao

So many words, so little said

>>9208207
The study of computer science coupled with biology will yield what you seek. What you find will scare you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLb9EIiSyG8

We are a wave. Oh how much Mark Twain really knew...

"Nothing exists except space and you, and you are just a thought."

>>9208207
>Solve the problem of consciousness

It has already been solved.

>>9209301
Some ideas really don't correspond to existing phenomena. A lot of ideas as a matter or fact. Try applying what you wrote to the idea of humors, or aether, or phlogiston, and see why you're not making a valid point.

>>9209301 #
Some ideas really don't correspond to existing phenomena. A lot of ideas as a matter of fact. Try applying what you wrote to the idea of humors, or aether, or phlogiston, and see why you're not making a valid point.

>>9208207
Love that album

>>9209411
Idea of a phenomenon corresponds to that phenomenon.

>>9209264
No dummy its not a problem. We know that electrical and chemical signals exist. We know that when a person is thinking or seeing or "experiencing" those signals are firing. YOU are the only one with the problem, the problem being your inability to accept that reality.

>>9209429
Sure, so if I just imagine something it will become real?
Or of someone says they experienced something or has a belief in something, then it must have been willed into reality? Because I really can't follow what you could possibly mean otherwise.

>>9209479
Holy fuck. What I am saying in LITERALLY NO WAY contradicts what you describe. How fucking dense are you to not see that there is a giant fucking mystery to the fact that electrical signals correspond to what I think and experience?

Fucking christ.

>>9208450
>Voice of choice
What? How do I make my head's voice sound like a cute anime girl? How have I never heard of this?

>>9209429
Do you really need to introduce this level of autism into the discussion?
The idea of "phlogiston" exists, as did the belief that this idea refers to a real world phenomenon, but the actual alleged real world referent of phlogiston does not.
In contrast, the idea of "hydrogen" exists, the belief that this idea refers to a real world phenomenon exists, and the actual alleged real world referent of hydrogen exists.
You can have ideas and believe those ideas refer to a real world phenomenon without that necessitating that this belief is true. This happens all the time because ideas by their nature are abstract and not limited in any mandatory way to the scope of real world phenomena.

>>9209677
>a giant fucking mystery
Or maybe the only giant thing is the degree to which you're overrating the validity and significance of your personal sensory related behavioral routines. That seems like a pretty likely explanation to me.

>>9208808
By using my free will.

Seriously though, consciousness is a nonsensical concept.

>>9209721
>consciousness is a nonsensical concept
I think you're mostly right, but I'd add that the fact people behave as though "consciousness" means something is itself something that isn't nonsense, as in there's a lot of explicable utility behind people behaving in that way. And I think it's important to recognize that because this is what explains how and why anyone has this belief to begin with.

>>9209718
We are not talking about behavior you fucking moron.

>>9209763
You don't believe you are, but you are. That's the point. You believe there's some "qualia" thing there that science can't explain, but in reality what's there is your behavior of reporting that this thing is there and otherwise acting as though it's there. And these behaviors aren't a mystery unless we insist on assuming what's being reported actually corresponds to a real world phenomenon. Given that we have no evidence for that being true, we only really need to explain / account for what we do have evidence of (your behavior). And we can explain / account for that just fine without appealing to some new science of the extra-physical.

>>9209864
It's funny, to me it's completely trivial that the "hard" problem of consciousness is a problem of a complex system.
Ultimately I think it comes down to the degree to which you are able to cognitively separate the your own cognition FROM your own cognition, as this very thing is a heuristic tool adapted for a different kind of problem solving than modelling/investigating complex "mechanical" systems.

It doesn't exist it's just an illusion.

>>9209763
What are you talking about then?

>>9209872
You know that computers can regulate their own computations and if programmed to do so can compute a simulation of alternative computations.

Do computers experience qualia?

>>9209940
I bet we make make a computer claim to experience qualia.

>>9209940
David Chalmers once wrote an essay about thermostats having qualia ("What is it like to be a Thermostat?").
http://consc.net/notes/lloyd-comments.html

>>9208207
Only after it solves the easy problem of consciousness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_problem_of_consciousness

>>9209685
Not guy you're replying to, but it's a piece of cake. Can't you listen to songs in your head?

everthing is conscious to a degree and every thing is just what god choses to obserb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZPSnkQWs6o&t=1s

>>9209864
>>9209940
>>9209943
The thread is about consciousness. We are talking about consciousness, awareness, experience.

Not my behavior surrounding the fact that I am conscious. Literally how stupid do you have to be to conflate the two?

It's like you have no idea what you even think you are saying. You just get off on the fantasy of being in control of everything and having an explanation.

You people are absolutely fucking retarded.

>”Conciousness is an illusion”

An illusion means there is some being subject to the illusion, other wise what the fuck is the point of it

>”I’m not real”

Paradoxical, notice how people who spout this like Jim Carrey refer to themselves as “I” still


Science is better off saying that the consciousness/self is real but not static. I’d love for someone to bring something up that can refute this

>>9209982
>>9210020
>>9210031
>>9210064
>>9210069
fuck off you retards. stop making these pseudoscience piles of garbage or take them somewhere else.

f u c k o f f

>>9208207
There are only two theories that are even close to being viable, let alone correct. First, logical positivism, the most brainlet world view ever conceived, seen in full dissolution here: >>9208218

Second, dialectical materialism. Mostly bullshit, post-metaphysics of habermas, fodor's non-reductive materialism by way of practopoiesis etc. Stupid brainlet shit really.

>>9210079
>pseudoscience
Eat shit and kill yourself you're brainwashed and in a cult you fucking hopeless cunt

>>9210082
>science and math are a cult, our nonsense rambling with "opinions" we just pulled out of our asses after 2 seconds in wikipedia is profound and free
i d i o t

How retarded do you have to be to unironically say "I do not have consciousness"

History will look back on you idiots as strange and bizarre fools. How could such an insanity have happened? They might not even believe it.

kys

>>9210079
>>9210020
Lol mine was a joke. I'm surprised the link went somewhere.

>>9210096
It is clear-thinking science and math that will save us from your retarded ideology.

>>9210101
“The cold hand of science”. Literally being nihilistic and edgy because it breaks new ground and has things no one ever said before in said theories. Also it’s a bunch of self loathing cucks like Sam Harris running away from real life.

>>9208396
>I think you are just saying random words
My experience with this board in a covalent bond

>>9208207

Consciousness is a state of matter, a combination of physics, electro-magnetism, quantum mechanics, biology, etc. It exists as an emergent state of energy. Think of when someone dies, the consciousness within them dissipates as the natural mechanisms creating it break down.

>>9210134
>>9210110
>>9210105
dude stop
what the fuck do you imbeciles gain from rambling like this
go away

>>9210139
No one knows what it is.

That includes you. You don't get to say it doesn't exist just because you can't explain it.

How intellectually irresponsible does one have to be to do that?

>>9210139
I’m tired of being told I as a being don’t exist. If a crazed psychopath kicked in Sam Harris’ door and threatened to kill his two children, his wife, and him himself, you bet your ass he would jump up and try to stop him. Because they exist, and killing them means they cease. Going on youtube and explaining that love is chemicals and the self doesnt exist is breaking no new ground, because its preposterous.

>>9210180
The concept of god is also unfalsifiable and frequently described as ineffable but ever-present. Should I fear for my immortal soul?

>>9208592
What about string theory?
Plus science can't explain everything because there's literally an infinite amount of phenomena to explain. Empiricism was a mistake

>>9208392
The only thing decoherent here is you

>>9210199
No, you should kill yourself.

>>9208208
It literally doesn't exist. It can be explored, it is being explored but the memey concept of "consciousness" is idealism/nonexistent.

>>9209506
Phenomena are experienced, not imagined, their nature is guessed, deliberately constructed even, so can end up wrong. If someone says he had an experience, I see no reason to say he hadn't.
>>9209709
Phlogiston and hydrogen are not phenomena and never were. Nobody confuses theory with experience.

>>9208207

it's simple. "Spirits" exist on an ethereal level in a void which is as of right now invisible to modern science (it exists in our universe but is for the most part undetectable by human senses like sight/sound and might be part of the cosmic microwave radiation) However evolution by chance, was able to tap into this alternate dimension by using brainwaves electrical signals in the brain to attach a soul to the physical body. There are billions, maybe even trillians of souls wandering the void with no purpose only experiencing qualia until being attracted to the brain waves set off by living intelligent beings until they are attached to that body and given desires, wants, feelings, and purpose.

Dead man paradox: If there is no way to detect consciousness, how are we talking about it right now? Evidently it was detected at some point, therefore it is within the realm of science QED.

>>9210423
>It can be explored, it is being explored
It isn't you moron

>>9209411
Your comment reeks of autism and you're not making a valid rebuttal

>>9210432
>their nature is guessed
lol come on, lets be real now

>>9210445
>it's simple. "Spirits" exist on an ethereal level in a void which is as of right now invisible to modern science

i think you need to reevaluate your psyche. this is a comment for a typical high school stoner who has a fetish on religion and philosophy. calm ur tits bro

>>9208207
>solve
Is it stated as an equation?

>hard
As opposed to what, the soft problem?

>problem
Only atheists care (less), and the only thing they can do is assert round-trip fallacies.

>>9210563
>Is it stated as an equation?
no

>As opposed to what, the soft problem?
exactly, look it up

>Only atheists care (less), and the only thing they can do is assert round-trip fallacies.
don't even know what this means

>>9210423
You are literally a moron

>>9210101
>I do not have conciousness
>*experiences conciousness*

Most be some kind of ironic humor.

>>9209718
>That seems like a pretty likely explanation to me.
lmao is this how you think science works?
>hurr that seems fine to me

>>9209099
If I is an illusion, then what is aware?

>>9210896
It's an illusion I'm literally a robot-rock beep beep

>our brains are hardware
>we are sofware
there, solved

>>9210896
You have to have an incredibly high IQ to understand the jokes on Rick and Morty

>>9209092
To what do you refer when you say "I"?

Nothing. It doesn't exist.

>>9208416
homosexuality

>>9210432
Many phenomena are imagined. And if they are experienced, what does that even mean. What ephemera are you grasping for here? Lets try an example, you tell me where understood science ends and where qualia begins.

>there is a box painted blue
>i turn my eyes onto the box
>light bounces off of the box
>light hits my retina, and triggers signals to go to my brain
>signals loop around in my brain telling me color, shape, distance and a few other things that light can help me with
>I see the blue box
>i think to myself "that box would be better if it was red."
>i imagine the box as red
>later, I think to myself again about the box and recall the image of it.

Where is the qualia? Where is something unexplainable? What am I missing here? Or do you think that there is a mystery where there isn't one, like "why do I form a visual image of the box? What is it projected onto?" Or something like that?

Pls anon I want to know why you can't accept that we're just electrically charged chemical filled meatsacks

>>9210191
You do exist anon, no one is saying you don't... its just that you're chemicals and signals and thats pretty much it. What do you think this dicussion is about? No one is endorsing solpsism by saying that there's not a magical spirit driver inside your brain pulling the levers. Just that the brain does the driving and there isn't a great mystery to it.

>>9211152
I suppose qualia is data processed by the thought process. As long as it's processed, it's under attention. In a way, imagination is a phenomenon too, but it uses a specific channel that identifies it as imagination and thus it can't be confused with data coming from different channels. And since it comes from imagination, it can be said to exist in imagination. I'm a physicalist actually.

>>9210200
>What about string theory
Falls into the same realm as consciousness
>plus science can't explain everything
Ayy lmao. There are seemingly infinite things, but if they occur naturally, then they can be explained naturally. This has been shown repeatedly by literally everything ever. Documenting them in the first place is the hardest part desu.
>Empiricism was a mistake
Whatever floats your boat.

>>9211588
thanks brainlet

I get so frustrated with the "consciousness doesn't exist" retards that I've decided to just write them all off as data points for chalmers' philosophical zombies. consciousness, out of all things, is the thing we know most directly and most certainly.

>>9212376
>I've decided to just write them all off as data points for chalmers' philosophical zombies
Why do dualists never understand their own philosophical zombie argument?
It only has any sort of capacity to even begin making a point if the zombies behave indistinguishably from non-zombies in every observable way. If you believe the zombies would be more likely to argue consciousness doesn't exist then you've completely missed the point of the argument which is to keep all the outwardly observable factors the same so you can then say there's something distinct from all those factors and that this distinct other thing isn't explained in terms of all those factors.

>>9208207
There exists no problem. Consciousness is Brahman, transcendental. Mind is material, and exists under the platform of consciousness just as the senses exist under the platform of mind. You cannot explain mind by your senses, and thus you also cannot explain consciousness by means of mind. By attempting to do so, you run into issues such as this which are based in illusion. Consciousness has to be understood by yoga, there is no other way.

>>9210082

>>9212376
>consciousness, out of all things, is the thing we know most directly and most certainly.
Just because you're stuck having to learn about the world from the starting point of your own limited and often unreliable sensory and cognition systems doesn't make your personal impressions about these systems more likely to be trustworthy or have strong fidelity to how they are in reality. The understanding these systems are very limited and misleading when trusted unconditionally is exactly why there's such a thing as the scientific method. We need to check our own observations against observations made by other independent parties, information collected with the assistance of mechanical tools, and non-observation based mathematical models in controlled settings with formal objective standards like statistical tests in order to correct for these problems.
Also, the belief our own impression of what's going on with ourselves is more immediate knowledge isn't necessarily true. There's decent evidence to suggest for example that we first learn to build models of people other than ourselves and only after that develop a capacity for introspection by applying that earlier approach to modeling others to create a self-model. That'd make our own sense of self secondary to and less immediate than our sense of others. We do have private access to some information specific to ourselves e.g. if we have mild tooth pain and don't outwardly express that pain then others around us won't know about it, but private access isn't anything magical. You have private access to information when you use a phone too and nobody goes around wondering about the hard problem of phones.

>>9212415
>>9212406
>>9212397
>>9212394
dude fuck off and stop your inane rambling
your "arguments" pulled from your asses after 10 seconds in wikipedia are fucking retarded and no one gives a shit about them

cut this kind of shit thread, it's cancer

>>9211737
I'm still waiting on that example of a previously unexplained natural phenomenon that eventually was explained and did not follow the very same laws of nature as everything else to ever exist.

Just because it's unanswered doesn't make it transcendent of physical explanation. This has been demonstrated repeatedly. Shitty "haha it's on a different plane :DDD" attempts of explaining hard problems such as vitalism end up being completely wrong in every way, shape, and form.

Consciousness is beautiful. Awareness one of the most marvelous, useful, cryptic, and game-changing things to exist in nature. It's not above nature though.

>>9212422
>>>/reddit/

>>9212420
Go make a better thread if you have something better to discuss.

>>9210495
>what is the half-dozen scientific fields that deal with it and more

>>9208207
>the """"""""hard"""""""" """""""""problem""""""""" of """""""""""""""""""consciousness""""""""""""""""""""""

>>9212415
Without reliable sensory system an organism wouldn't be able to survive.

>>9208218
awake and aware = conscious

>>9212394
>if you disagree with me you believe in a soul
thanks brainlet

>>9212422
nobody said it's transcendental you moronic brainlet, and your comment is filled from start to finish with pop-sci thinking.
>>>/reddit/

>>9212431
what are they? name them i'm waiting.

>>9212415
>brainlet fails to realize even when applying the scientific method information has to go through the unreliable sensory and cognition system he thinks it bypasses

>>9212622
>cognitive science
>linguistics
>neuroscience
>neurology
>psychology (bit sketchy in some parts as to its scientific status, however -- perhaps "cognitive psychology" to be more specific)
>cognitive semiotics
>biosemiotics
>computational semiotics
>certain areas of AI (broad field, many areas make heavy use of the other fields listed, not for industry applications but more of a general pursuit of intelligence and thought).

>b-but these don't frame anything in the same way that the wikipedia page on the """""hard""""" """""problem """" of """"consciousness"""" does!!!!!
No, because it's vague drivel that really says nothing about anything, it posits no real problem or points. It serves only for the long-antiquated to foster further denial of the material reality. However, they're all related to the mechanics of "consciousness" and interpreting its form and meaning, especially the semiotics ones. Therefor, they qualify.

>>9212626
More like machines, procedures and the minds of thousands who tear apart any concept put forth if it contains assumption or flaw, but yes, obviously it is not infallible. Just significantly less so than undisciplined and childish, self-serving vagueness.

>>9212883
So you're aware none of these sciences actually investigate the subjective experience, but you decided to post them anyways. Is this the point where I'm supposed to call you retarded? You tell me.

>>9212885
>More like machines, procedures and the minds of thousands who tear apart any concept put forth if it contains assumption or flaw
you can't even be sure if any of those exists

>>9212894
Tell me anon of taking a brain scan of someone while they do some cognitive task isn't exploring the subjective experience of consciousness in a scientific way I don't know what is.

>>9212883
you're a retard. stop.

>>9212544
False. We're talking about "reliable" as in accurate to reality, not "reliable" as in helpful for survival. I bet you think those two things are the same, but they really aren't.

>>9212899
"Sure" was never the goal. The idea is just to make it less likely you're wrong, not to gain perfect infallible knowledge of reality.

>>9213560
Almost same.

>>9213560
We're talking about "reliable" as in accurate to reality, not "reliable" as in perfectly accurate.

>>9213619
Nope. This specific question has actually been investigated formally already.
>Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but that is just tuned to fitness.

>>9213657
Which implies that the fact of an environment whose common fitness function engages sensory awareness is a discrete metaphysical outcome.

>>9211059
fucking kek

>>9212883
>semiotics
My man.

>consciousness is just an illusion
This might be the dumbest statement regularly repeated by intelligent people. This is what happens when you are excessively empircal and reductionist. You become stupid:

"Consciousness doesn't exist outside of my consciousness, therefore consciousness doesn't exist.

"Everything can be reduced to simple parts, so a holistic phenomenon like consciousness couldn't possible exist."

"If consciousness appears to exist, it must be the case that people's consciousness is fooling them."

>>9208207
>implying there's a problem with consciousness

dumb philosophers...

>>9213875
If consciousness can fool us, then it exists.

>>9213875
>"If consciousness appears to exist, it must be the case that people's consciousness is fooling them."
Nobody says that. You're assuming "consciousness" is a real thing and then acting like people who disagree with you somehow both do and don't make that same assumption by having your strawman argument claim "consciousness" causes people to falsely believe in "consciousness." When people argue "consciousness" isn't real, they mean it isn't real, not that it's real but also not real. Your behavior is geared around references to a concept of "experiences," not because these "experiences" literally exist but because it's useful for organisms to behave in reference to that concept as though they did exist, just like how it's useful to behave as though numbers are objects even though you can't actually see or touch a number and they onlt exist insofar as our behavior in reference to them gives them pseudo-existence e.g. someone can talk about their credit score and even express emotions about it like anger or sadness in much the same way they might over an actual person or other physical real world object / entity. So by giving non-real objects the same surrounding reference behaviors you would to real objects you can end up with some reason to believe a non-real object is a real object. "Illusion" is a loaded term, but insofar as people use that term in this context that's what they really mean. Not that you're imagining your imagination or any similar blatantly self-refuting statements, but that your behavior is geared towards acting and reporting as though "experiences" are there when they really aren't.

>>9208218
good goy.

its all an illusion and nothing matters.

gib shekels btw

>>9213919
IFF you're wrong, then you're wrong for either a perceptible reason, or you're wrong for a reason considered intractable. (Here, what we consider intractable is defined by the negation of it being perceptible, such that there is perfect exclusion.)

If the "experiences" are not really there, we might posit that you would be wrong for some intractable reason, potentially even so intractable that we cannot identity it as "wrong" at all. This makes sense because the noisy meandering of neurons about a non-existent "experience" would be logically intractable. There would be nothing to grasp at, and so the grasping at would be the only real "thing" or "phenomena" to occur. Since it was not perceptible, not existing or being able to become "grasped," its intractability is the only constant that remains, leaving us with the conclusion that "real" or "illusory" are intractable, as potential answers, to the open "question" that is the "mystery" of consciousness. In other words, even if you were right, it would *still* remain entirely undecidable that that were the case.

However, if the experiences *are* really there, then the fact of those experiences would serve as their own affirmation, making it readily perceptible why you were wrong; we do experience. The fact that we can say so serves as its own evidence that we have them, even if they had been illusory _in any sense_. Now, you may "intuit" that people can lie about their experiences, and so it may be falsely reported that any given experience is real, but the concept itself removed from vocal affirmation persists even with the possibility to lie about the *content* of any given experience.

Thus, either you're wrong for self-apparent, self-consistent reasons, or it's both impossible to decide if you're right or wrong or determine if there were any meaning to be had in acceptance of the conclusion that "experience" wasn't really there.

>>9213943
>self-apparent
Self-evident, even.

(To be clear, I bothered to reply in so much detail because I thought your post was an excellent explanation of that side of the debate.)

>>9209101
This
Pzombies ITT projecting their lack of experience lmao

>>9213657
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/tesla-autopilot-death-self-driving-car-elon-musk
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36736103
Apparently practice gives different results: inaccuracy leads to deaths solely due to inaccuracy. Though it should be obvious, you're just pretending to be retarded.

>>9213584
Great job buddy, you now have a 0.0000000000000...01% chance of not being wrong. Thanks science!

>>9208207
First we need real definition of: consciousness

>>9214806
Are you seriously citing ONE automobile fatality as an argument fitness optimization doesn't work?

>>9214970
>"Thanks science" he said sarcastically via the elaborate international network of computers he apparently believes just invented and built themselves

>>9214806
Here's why the reality vs. perceptual biology distinction is not negligible:
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/09/06/492779594/what-if-evolution-bred-reality-out-of-us
>To see how this works, consider an example Hoffman describes in an interview with Quanta Magazine. He begins by imagining a resource like water whose real-world quantity has been objectively ordered — very little water, medium amounts of water, lots of water. According to Hoffman, most fitness functions won't be direct responses to something like this ordering. Instead they will be like bell curves. Too little water is bad (death by desiccation), but so is too much water (death by drowning). That means evolution would tune the organism's behavior so that too little and too much water would both be bad and both generate the same kind of response (perception). Only the moderate amount of water would generate a different response.

>>9209685
What are you, retarded? I can make the voice in my head sound like anyone. You simply lack imagination.

>>9215346
And if perception of quantity of water is not accurate, the organism will die.

>>9209018
Actually read wilfrid sellars attack on this notion. I think he does a great job at refuting what you consider the most "obvious empirical observation" and it has a lot to do with how we use language.

>>9209092
You are your brain you fucking moron. You're brain is aware. Everything you're experienced is just the brain reacting to input. There is no magic, you are a slab of atoms and bioelectricity. A simple tweak and you could believe that giving rimjobs to rhinos is your purpose in life.

>>9209940
Yes. There is little difference between a computer and our brain anyway.

>>9213875
Consciousness (or rather awareness) can be reduced to simple parts though. Lobotomized people, the mentally deficient, people on mind altering drugs, all these people have lowered forms of awareness and such "consciousness". And when people say "consciousness does not exist" then they are including their own. You love the strawman of the hypocrite who spouts out things you don't agree with but secretly doesn't believe them because how could they? But it's true, consciousness is nothing more than the illusion of a self. Neural activity vainly feigning importance.

>>9215905
>there is little difference between our brain and a computer
>computers experience qualia

My lord how can someone type this with a straight face? Besides the differences in makeup, complexity, and method of computation, a computer is simply not alive. It shouldn't even be necessary to say these things.

Is there anyone posting in this thread who even understands the hard problem beyond "wiki says...?"

You have to make one assumption: we can empirically understand the world. Thats it. If you assume that, there is NO HARD PROBLEM AT ALL. If you don't assume that, how can you begin to logically argue either way since you are rejecting the common ground between qualiaists and nonqualiaists (who both accept empiricism). The empirical world can be observed, interpreted, and indeed predicted based on past events. We know for a fact that humans experience consciousness, just like we know humans take shits. We know why and how people take shits. We know the how of consciousness pretty well (chemical signals, electrical signals, feedback loops using those two in the brain, different parts of the brain interacting with each other, etc.) The why, perhaps is still unknown.

Now, to say we don't know what consciousness is because we don't know the why is like saying you don't know what shitting is because although you know people poop and you know what the intestinal tract is, you can't wrap your head around the need for people to dispose of solid waste.

There is no qualia, even though you are conscious and thinking. Its all just your brain reacting to stimuli, and feeding back that stimuli into itself to compute other reactions. Its pretty amazing that it leads some to a clear view of the world and some to think that a magic spirit lives inside them, and its even more amazing when you consider that it all evolved over millions of years of unguided processes. Reality is far stranger than fiction.

>>9209279
Because it's the same argument every time, with nothing new added. If a board re-covers the same points every few weeks for years, it should eventually be banned

>>9215346

Wrong. Too much water would invoke an avoidance response. Too little water would invoke approach behaviour.

>>9215900
>>9215947

Maybe not all humans have consciousness, that explains why you disagree and are capable of rationalizing something qualitatively different from the rest of the universe (in fact the only part of the universe you experience; by definition) as being equivalent to a bowel movement. For me its the only self-evident truth. Strict materialists are confused to think that noumenal is more immediate than phenomena. If you see the colour red, that is infinitely more proof of redness existing than your belief in atoms creating consciousness. Believing in atoms creating consciousness literally requires that you presume that causality exists (see Hume), that your reasoning/language/memory faculties work (from first principles a la Descartes), that the scientific method works, that scientists aren't deceiving you about atoms existing, that scientists didn't make large mistakes at some point in creating quantum theory, and arbitrarily assuming that something that hasn't been proven yet (that atoms create consciousness) will be proven in the future because it fits your pre-conceptions. Experiencing redness in return is a proof in and of itself.

>>9215327
Not disparaging science just disparaging the idiots who think it actually explains everything we experience

>>9214806
>autopilot death self driving car
>Apparently practice gives different results: inaccuracy leads to deaths solely due to inaccuracy.
Heh, AI is so stup...
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/road-safety-report/en/
>Some 1.25 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes, according to the WHO's Global status report on road safety 2015, despite improvements in road safety.
... oh. I guess we're not that good at driving either. Who would've guessed? I mean, besides everyone who has access to news on the TV, radio, or internet, or who drives to work on a regular basis, or who has any sort of contact with the outside world. But yeah, AI, so stupid. Glad we were able to safely put this issue to rest now that this one death confirms programs will never be able to match our flawless sensory awareness skills because they don't have our magic infallible qualia.

>>9215947
Qualia is just data, no life is needed for it. And programs perceive world in a certain form, which is literally what qualia is.

>>9215995
Which specific organism's behavior are you talking about? Are you under the impression all organisms behave the same way in response to water quantity?
Also, that's just an example meant to outline how a fitness optimizing agent could perform better with a strategy that has less to do with reality and more to do with fitness than a rival agent's strategy. Whether some organisms do pick up on more details when it comes to water in particular is not very relevant to that point. The generalized point independent of that one example is that you can have greater fitness as an organism that treats phenomena that are distinct in reality as though they were the same (or even the other way around with treating phenomena that are the same as though they were different, something we do through superstitious behavior / apophenia where we think we're seeing patterns emerge that aren't really there).
If you want a specific example that's less debatable for this idea, our behavior in response to the electromagnetic spectrum fits. We demonstrate some very responsive behavior in the presence of a tiny little portion of the spectrum (visible light), even demonstrating sensitivity to little sub-sections of that already very small section through our concept of colors, while behaving in the presence of either higher end radiation like X-rays or lower end radiation like infrared with equal obliviousness when dealing with them using our sensory organs alone. It's only when we employ more thorough and controlled investigative methods using the scientific method and technological innovation that we're able to transcend this limitation to some degree and become aware of what our bodies wouldn't be able to differentiate or even notice at all on their own.

>>9216245
>Some 1.25 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes
Only because they don't look at the road at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2013/jun/18/smartphones-and-rise-of-child-accidents

>>9216326
All 1.25 million of them? Doubtful, especially since automobile fatality rates have been declining and smartphones are a relatively recent technology. If they were causing a lot of these deaths there would probably be an opposite trend of increasing fatality rates from a decade or two ago to current times.

Descartes, one of the founders of modern science, has himself argued that consciousness exists beyond mathematical concepts, therefore any mathematical modelisation of consciousness is bound to be innacurate. Basically it's a job better left to philosophers.

>>9216403
>Descartes
"Cartesian dualism" is considered an insult today because of how obviously wrong that way of conceptualizing things is. His views haven't held up very well over the years. He's more like a Freud than a Gauss i.e. a famous historical thinker who normies think of as reputable but whose actual ideas have almost entirely been long since discredited.

>>9216434
His cogito is an irrefutable truth though.

>>9216440
Buddhist philosophy preemptively refuted it before he was even born.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-indian-buddhism/#1.1

>>9216444
I'll read about it, but I'm curious how you can refute these two statements, without being absurd.

A. I exist
B. I think

>>9216490
>I
>exist
>think
This is relevant:
>Just as words such as ‘chariot’ are used only when certain parts are arranged together to form a spatio-temporal entity we ordinarily designate as such, so also an individual (satto) is nothing but a conventional designation that applies to the five aggregates.
Apparent "things" that are treated as though they exist, including the "self," are really only labels applied to different arrangements of mereological simples. Proximity of simples either as objects near each other in space or moments next to each other in time doesn't create the existence of anything else in reality any more than putting fries next to a burger creates a new food distinct from either the fries or the burger.

>>9216513
this is irrelevant
you're rambling and making no sense

>>9215995
>causality exists
It does though.
>that your reasoning/language/memory faculties work
They work because they evolved that way
>that the scientific method works
It's not totally perfect but for the most part it does the job well
>that scientists aren't deceiving you about atoms existing,
Why would they deceive people on such a subject?
>that scientists didn't make large mistakes at some point in creating quantum theory
They probably have but consciousness being related to QM is rather dumb. "We don't know about the both of them, they must be related somehow." Just dumb
>arbitrarily assuming that something that hasn't been proven yet (that atoms create consciousness) will be proven in the future because it fits your pre-conceptions
You got me there but no other theory makes a lick of damn sense.

>>9216008
It does though. Sorry if you want to think otherwise.

>>9212899
>Dude we're in the matrix lmao

Existence is much more mundane than such fantastic drivel.

>>9210191
He would try and stop them because in the end he is just an animal, nothing more. And animals through evolution have developed behaviors intended to preserve themselves and their offspring The whole "love is chemicals, self doesn't exist" stuff breaks no new ground because such things were discovered long ago.

>>9216391
It's 0.02% of population. What maximum IQ on the lower margin does it correspond?

>>9216296
>do with reality and more to do with fitness than a rival agent's strategy
Inert matter is actually more forgiving to mistakes (cf. religion), but rival agent will outright abuse all loopholes you leave to his maximum profit.

>>9215947
beeing alive only means you have a metabolism and reproduce. Live has nothing to do with qualia

>>9215900
You are not your brain.
If you die, your brain is still there, yet you are gone

>>9216745
Can you prove you are not in the matrix?

>>9216513
You're confusing existence as a statement, and existence as a concept.

>>9208970
this nigga haaahah

>>9208207
I agree with Ed Witten: I doubt it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUW7n_h7MvQ

>>9217678
such a soft soothing voice

>>9217432
You are your brain activity I should say.

>>9217438
Yes, because all the evidence we have contradicts that absurd position

>>9209101
>>9214365
The thing is that they shouldn't be capable of belief or projection, since both require self awareness - their belief that consciousness doesn't exist requires them to be consciousness.
This means they must actually be demons who lie to us intentionally or manakins controlled by a demiurge.

>>9218704
>This means
You're not on /x/ anymore. People can figure out what you mean from the concept alone. Adding nonce terms just makes you sound like a crackpot.

>>9218704
Cool definitions bro.

>>9208450
>perception of simulated language means there is something intangible in our heads talking to us

Our mind runs simulations of all kinds of things all the time. You do it every time you think ahead or recall a memory. Is it not, then, reasonable to assume that the words we "hear" are the brain's way of simulating language to facilitate thought and communication?

This isn't to say that "consciousness" isn't real; for any illusion to occur there must necessarily be an observer capable of perceiving it. But perhaps the idea of consciousness as "the voice in your head" is mistaken.

>>9210432
>phenomena are experienced, not imagined

w h a t i s t h e d i f f e r e n c e

anny onnnnne pleaseeee,
just send me a pretty informative paragraph or essay about consciousness it doesnt really matter, Im in college and its horrible to always balance stuff out because it seems like i can only focus on 1 or 2 classes a day, im sorry but it would be the very appreciated.
heres my number homies, 4 40-570-8896
thx again

>>9216745
>existence is mundane in the slightest

that's where you're wrong, friend

>>9208207
>Can science
Yes.

>>9210096
You know you're talking to a cultist when they consider their spoonfed philosophy synonymous with science itself

>>9210110
Sam Harris is currently one of the biggest promoters (popularity wise) of the existence of subjective consciousness, the fuck you talking about

>>9218695
What evidence?

>>9219216
No

>>9219309
He isn't, he unequivocally states that consciousness is an illusion.

>>9208207
>consciousness
>real
did I click on /lit/ by mistake or is /sci/ being raided by brainlets

>>9216739
Prove it

>>9219528
>philosophy is for brainlets

>>9209685
>>9215850
I'm more interested in how I'd get a fucking voice in my head in the first place. Only time I hear voices is when I'm very tired and then it's not about what I'm reading but just random shit.

>>9208508
>No. §17 in Leibniz's Monadology addresses this.
quick rundown

>>9208207
>is there any factors we could measure?
if none, then science couldn't.

>>9208207
what is cognitive science, again ?

>>9219707
>claims philosophy isn't for brainlets
>posts a bunch of scientists because he knows only their opinions matter
lmao

>>9219716
Most people can recall songs and sounds in such a way that the memories stimulate the sub-vocalization mechanism, which is modulated with the tone of the person in the memory. At least this is what happens to me when I try and remember "puru puru pururin". Legitimate hallucinations seem to by-pass the sub-vocalization pathway and stimulate the auditory center directly.

>>9219791

> Implying Descartes Pascal and Leibniz don't matter
> implying Bolanzo, Church, Frege, Hilbert, Laplace, Tarski, Ramsey, Turing don't matter because they are mathematicians / philosophers and not scientists
> implying science can solve everything
> implying science can determine morality
> implying science can determine whether your wife / gf loves you
> implying science doesn't shew that all scientific theories are wrong by inductive reasoning, since all previous scientific theories have been proven wrong.

>>9219807
>implying they do
>implying that's what I implied
>implying that's what I implied
>implying philosophy can
>implying philosophy can

>>9219528
back to >>>/highschool/ with you

>>9219400
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbv9mvg1X1A

>>9219931
back to >>>/elementaryschool/ with you

I think we can just say that consciousness is sub-group of brain that can do more advanced stuff, improve over time and communicate between other parts. Let's think of simple animals that theoretically don't have "consciousness". They almost never improve over time, they don't think logically. What they do is simple mechanism of: Find food - Defend - Increase amounts of organisms. And now we can look at human. We are improving over time, change the way the mechanism "works", set our own goals. Most of us know how many times we change the way we're thinking about something. That doesn't apply to most animals, where they don't think very much, keep to the mechanism, don't change it. In other words, I think that consciousness is ability to change "mechanism" that rules our life and death.
.
.
.
Or maybe I've drank too much mountain dew

>>9208218
All parts of the brain working in unison and conducting electricity is precisely what consciousness is, anon.

>>9220016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0

>>9208207
science can explain everything, just give it time.

>>9220347
prove it

>>9208207
as soon as you solve the hard problem of geocentrism

>>9208207
Consciousness is integrating information. When you see when you go outside and see trees, houses, and birds is it the result of your consciousness integrating the information.

Your brain doesn't produce the information when you go outside. Neither your eyes. Your consciousnesses produces the information. Your consciousness exist without your body. People don't need a body to exist.

First of off, a lot of people are wondering my proof for consciousness and here is how. Your brain cannot be doing the integrating information. Your brain is nothing more than mere atoms. Now, how can atoms be integrating information? Atoms cannot be doing the interpreting the physical world because atoms nothing. Nothing cannot be interpreting the information.