/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4837596]

I need a scientific explanation for WHY AM I ME.
why does my soul or whatever the fuck reside in this retard's body, and why do i have to experience the life of said retard and not someone else or an entirely different animal? why is it animals that have the ability experience anyway? or can something like a rock ponder about its own existence? if not why not, and what makes me different from a rock?

[Anonymous No.4837604]

It doesn't matter if who you are, you'd always be you, and you'd always be asking this question

[Anonymous No.4837605]

>>>/lit/

they're basically our philosophy board, which deals with epistemology. We're here for the stuff that you can objectively see in front of you, scoped within the frame of our own bodies and experiences.

[Anonymous No.4837612]

You are you and what you experience are because of a specific arrangement of synaptic responses firing at any given moment.

[Anonymous No.4837622]

>>4837612
There are billions of other synaptic events occurring everywhere on the world. Why can't I experience those, too? If it's distance, why don't I experience them when bumping heads with somebody? Why am I experiencing the set of synaptic responses that I am, instead of somebody else who was born at the same time as me, or slightly earlier or later? This is a valid scientific question, because if we can understand the source of consciousness we can make better computer/mind interfaces.

[Anonymous No.4837620]

you are only for your lifespan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return
warning: not /sci/

[Anonymous No.4837635]

>>4837622
They're not in YOUR brain.

[Anonymous No.4837643]

>>4837635
Again, why is this MY brain?

[Anonymous No.4837648]

>>4837643

because that's how the universe is

[Anonymous No.4837657]

>>4837643
Because the material make up based on the self replicating compound structures had a specific variety in them which allowed for your brain to be "wired" the way that it is.

[Anonymous No.4837658]

OP, this is the only thing in our universe, which can't be explained. Do you understand it?

[Anonymous No.4837663]

>>4837596
There is no soul and there is no reason.
>can something like a rock ponder about its own existence
Nope.
>what makes me different from a rock
Having a structure that processes information (the brain).

[Anonymous No.4837664]

>I need
Science doesn't give a shit about your needs.

[Anonymous No.4837669]

>>4837604
Love that answer.

[Anonymous No.4837670]

>>4837648
In other words, you don't know.
>>4837657
That's not answering my question. I understand that cellular division and billions of years in evolution and heredity produced this body, and billions of other bodies on the planet. However, countless conscious organisms were made at the same time and are constantly being made. Why here, why me, why now?

Is this literally just something that we can't sufficiently explain right now?

[Anonymous No.4837688]

>>4837684
And why? You're all giving very circular answers. If you don't know, just say that.

[Anonymous No.4837684]

>>4837670
>Why here, why me, why now?
Because you're you.

[Anonymous No.4837693]

>>4837689

I don't think he's trolling. This is where discussions about this stuff goes. This is why I said this... >>4837605

[Anonymous No.4837689]

>>4837684
Stop the fuck trolling a poor guy.

[Carl No.4837697]

>>4837688
Nothing is circular about his answers. If you don't understand or don't like the answers, you should stop asking questions.

[Anonymous No.4837698]

>>4837670
You're looking at this through a biased viewpoint. Your makeup allows for the illusion of consciousness in the way that you perceive your surroundings. It is a product of your brain functioning. That is all.

[Anonymous No.4837695]

>>4837596
>>why does my soul or whatever the fuck reside in this retard's body, and why do i have to experience the life of said retard and not someone else or an entirely different animal?
if you are asking if it could be in another, we'd have to assume, yes, it could.
Asking why the coin -had- to turn heads after it did doesn't make any sense; physics and the state of the universe made it possible, then it happened.

>>why is it animals that have the ability experience anyway?
I guess words are missing from that?

>or can something like a rock ponder about its own existence?
>if not why not, and what makes me different from a rock?
You are being far too vague.
These are very bad questions, because you aren't clarifying what you are asking.

[Anonymous No.4837709]

Because your parents had a child.

[Anonymous No.4837712]

>>4837688
I think you have to understand that you aren't some celestial being that simply inhabits your body, you ARE your body. Your consciousness isn't controlling your brain and body, it IS your brain. Your brain created the being that you think of as "you".

[Anonymous No.4837704]

>>4837663

Saying it doesn't make it so.

OP, I sympathize with you. I've tried to pose this conundrum to science types before, but as someone else pointed out, it's a philosophical rather than a scientific issue. As such the people here are ill prepared to deal with it and most of them will simply miss the point without giving it any serious thought, because they incorrectly assume you are simply being an idiot.

In case you're wondering, this is called the "hard problem of consciousness." Like most things, you'll learn more about it by reading books than by asking 4chan. Wikipedia is a good start (because it points you to some relevant authors).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

I'd also add that Descartes and Kierkegaard are pretty good philosophers of the phenomenon of "self." But then again, I've never found a satisfying answer to your question and for me it continues to be one of the most difficult questions you can ask.

Learn to express it in thought experiments. Mary's Room for example. Again, I'm gonna use Wikipedia because it's good for this stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%27s_Room

Meanwhile, enjoy your thread full of people who don't even understand your question.

[Anonymous No.4837723]

>>4837670
That's not answering my question. I understand that cellular division and billions of years in evolution and heredity produced this body, and billions of other bodies on the planet. However, countless conscious organisms were made at the same time and are constantly being made. Why here, why me, why now?

>Is this literally just something that we can't sufficiently explain right now?
Is -what- something we can't explain?
Self-awareness, consciousness, mind, identity, frame of reference, limits of sensation -- these are all separate ideas, but you haven't clarified which you are asking about.

And, no, we can't answer almost any of them, but the reasons why not differ, and the limits of what we can know about them differ.

[Anonymous No.4837725]

>>4837697
>Why am I me specifically?
>Because you are you.
>not circular

>Why is God real?
>Because God says so.

>Why is marijuana bad?
>Because it's bad.

Et al.

[Anonymous No.4837733]

>>4837712
Again: Thousands of brains were formed at the same time as mine and yours. Why are my experiences therefore separate or more specifically, why are they this particular body's experiences?

[Anonymous No.4837736]

Because God created you.

[Anonymous No.4837745]

>>4837712
>>I think you have to understand that you aren't some celestial being that simply inhabits your body, you ARE your body.
>>Your consciousness isn't controlling your brain and body, it IS your brain. Your brain created the being that you think of as "you".

That answer presumes something very major: that all of your being is the physical body and chemical reactions.
There may be little reason to think that is true, and it certainly isn't presumable.

[Anonymous No.4837753]

>>4837670
OP correct me if I am wrong, I am just trying to understand you here.
But are you under the impression that your conscienceness is seperate from your own individual brain? I think what most of /sci/ believes is it develops in your brain as you are born and age.

If you think there is some kind of pool of souls out in the middle of the milky way and your soul happened to pop into your current body... well. go to /x/

[Anonymous No.4837747]

>>4837723
The general topic of the thread is "Why, specifically, do I experience the whole of this particular body's experiences, rather than another body made at the same time as mine or even at a different time?"

[Anonymous No.4837761]

>>4837733
Again: Because your idea of consciousness is a biased one. If you're ultimately asking why someone else's brain isn't firing the same responses that yours is it is because it isn't attached to YOUR spinal column.

[Anonymous No.4837757]

By definition there can only be one sentient being. Reincarnation seems to be the most plausible explanation.

[Anonymous No.4837759]

>>4837725
That's not circular, that's a tautology.

Moreover, the question is begging a tautology anyway. The problem is not with the answers, it is with the ill-posed question.

[Anonymous No.4837769]

>>4837745
Evidence to the contrary?

[Anonymous No.4837773]

>>4837733
>Why are my experiences therefore separate
Because you have a frame of reference: that is, since you acquire experience from a specific location, and inside a specific mind, they are unique and must be different from others.

>or more specifically, why are they this particular body's experiences?
That -particular- body? if you mean why is your mind in your body, then you'd have to know exactly how body acquires mind, which we do not.

We can answer why your frame of reference is different, and why frame of reference is fundamental -- but not why there is mind.
That is a philosophical question alone.

[Anonymous No.4837775]

>>4837733
Well the brains have a different combinnation of genes that affect them that vary from person to person. And there is a neat little thing called neural plasticity your brain actually changes according to information that it observes. Everyone is different because of the different combination of genes and the different experiences that they have. On a side note I find it fascinating that every time you even talk to someone their brains are creating new synapses in a response to the information you are telling them.

[Anonymous No.4837783]

>>4837757
>By definition there can only be one sentient being. Reincarnation seems to be the most plausible explanation.

You didn't make any sense there at all.
There is nothing about being sentient that requires there can be only one.
Reincarnation is about soul, not sentience.

[Anonymous No.4837788]

>>4837733

You're not going to get anywhere with this. Nobody has even figured out what you're asking, and those who have begun to are trying to pretend it isn't a good question.

Why? Because they're scientists, not philosophers. This is something that science can't answer, sort of like "is capital punishment immoral?" If I had to START answering your question, I'd say that your subjective experiences are fully sensory in nature, and as such they are the experiences of your organs. All organisms are simultaneously experiencing the same thing. Why are you "only you?" Well, how do you know that you are? Because your brain tells you so? But everyone's brain is telling them the same thing, too. You have to deconstruct the phenomenon of subjective experience to the point of absurdity in order to answer the question that we are both enjoying here.

The reason this question is so bothersome to scientists and the reason people in this thread are showing you so much hostility is because it begins to contemplate things such as the existence of a metaphysical component of being. Mature scientists, even materialists, ought to be open to the possibility that there are things we simply do not know. And if those things cannot be demonstrated through scientific method, often they will shrug them off as "not worth asking." Richard Dawkins is a good example of someone who has done this, even in the context of debates.

However, you can find very satisfying answers in philosophy. A lot of materialists would argue that the answers are not "true" unless they can be proven through scientific method, but you and I probably know better.

Godspeed OP. Please don't be discouraged by all the people who aren't getting you here.

[Anonymous No.4837803]

>>4837753
No, I hate the newage hippie bullshit about space children and all that. I want to know specifically why these experiences are mine, why this body is mine, and so on. There are billions of people on the planet, several of which are born and conceived at the same time meaning they came into physical being at the same time. Even if they had not, why is it that my brain is not one that was born sooner, or later? That is what makes this puzzling to me.

Like said in >>4837773
we don't know where the "mind" comes from.

Also:

>>4837775
You're neglecting genetically identical twins. They don't have any sort of mental or experiential overlap, though they were conceived, born, and grew at the exact same time, with exactly identical genes. Each one was uniquely conscious at birth, and throughout life.

Also

i'm not op, just somebody else who ponders the hard problem of consciousness now and then.

[Anonymous No.4837814]

>>4837788
Thanks Katawa dude. I've seen good ideas and discussions on /sci/ before so when I jumped into this thread I thought there might be some more of the same, but it's just been.. Well, more of the same, but in reference to something else.

You did raise some interesting theories though, particularly "everybody else's brain is telling them the same thing too," but ah well.

[Anonymous No.4837822]

>consciousness
>soul
>mind

Can you retards please fuck off to >>>/x/?
Your magic mumbo-jumbo doesn't real and a science board is not the right place for discussing spiritual garbage.

[Anonymous No.4837831]

>/sci/
>Random philosopher appears
>Why xyz?
>O, simply 123...
>I don't like that answer. It isn't touchy-feely and cuddly enough.

Every freaking time.

[Anonymous No.4837828]

>>4837822
neurologists and psychologists would like a very scientific word with you

if we could understand the source of individual experience the applications are myriad

please don't be an ancient geocentrist

[Anonymous No.4837829]

THERE IS NO WHY.

[Anonymous No.4837837]

>>4837828
>individual experience

Care to provide any evidence for this nonsense?

[Anonymous No.4837832]

>>4837596
OP, where you "you" when you were born? Did you have consciousness back then? Or didn't it rather appear as you grew up? In this scope, can you agree that the feeling of you residing in your body is just an illusion, as your consciousness simply arose from the ordered complexity of your brain?

In ALL kinds of questions, you always get an interesting point of view when you see it at a microscopic scale rather than as a whole. If you're just a bunch of organised atoms, then you have no soul. The interactions between the atoms of your body (of your brain mostly) give rise to your consciousness. When you die these interactions stop and you are gone forever. Memory doesn't persist when you die. You won't wake up in another body as this other body will have its own consciousness.

You could imagine someone who have exactly the same brain as you, and you could say this person is you as he/she would have the same memories and think about the same things at the same time.

[Anonymous No.4837835]

>>4837814

Consider the possibility that every morning you wake up a different person, with all of their memories. You'd have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.

Now consider the possibility that all of this occurs simultaneously.

Aldous Huxley wrote a bit about this. He called it the "Mind at Large." It's the possibility that "self" is an illusion created by the senses, and that all people are in fact united in a whole entire sensory experience. But somehow I still don't find it a satisfying answer because it comes around to the same problem. Why here, now, in any instant, do I SEEM to be one and not others?

I think 4chan needs a philosophy board. That would be pretty cool.

[Anonymous No.4837846]

>>4837828
>psychologists
>science

One and only one.

[Anonymous No.4837843]

>>4837733
>Thousands of brains were formed at the same time as mine and yours. Why are my experiences therefore separate or more specifically, why are they this particular body's experiences?

Are you fucking retarded? It doesn't matter whether brains form at the same time. Your experiences, your thoughts and feelings ARE your brain. They are preserved and maintained through the physical structure of your brain, in the connections between the cells, in the chemical composition of its structure. Your very consciousness comes from the same brain, with those connections, and cannot be any different.

[Anonymous No.4837851]

>You're neglecting genetically identical twins. .
No I am not. They are not doing the same thing every second of every day. They are not experiencing the same stimuli in the exact same fashion. And Neural plasticity isn't a guaranteed thing if the stimuli is not strong enough to open NMDA receptors (Which is how neural plasticity takes place) Please don't dismiss my arguement if you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.4837855]

>>4837837
what am I doing right now? tell me from my point of view what i am looking at in my periphery.

[Famous comedian Arnold Braunschweige !ArNiE7fdy6 No.4837870]

>mfw when you realise your brain named itself

How even

[Anonymous No.4837865]

>>4837822


Its funny because everyone who lurks /x/ lurks /sci/. You can't deny the truth.

[Anonymous No.4837868]

>>4837855
You are looking at /sci/ and replying to posts.

[Anonymous No.4837869]

>>4837851
*argument

[Anonymous No.4837877]

>everybody completely misinterprets the question
>UNEDUCATED PLEBIAN GO BACK TO /x/
>HURRR HAEV SUM TIRED ANSWERS!!!1!
>LOL JUST BECAUSE XD
>PLEASE LET ME SUCH YOUR DICK MR HAWKING

Every time.

[Anonymous No.4837878]

>>4837870

How is that interesting? I can name myself right now.

[Carl No.4837872]

>>4837865
lel that's true. They have higgs boson threads on /x/ as well.

[Anonymous No.4837875]

This thread.

OP legit retarded, with zero understanding neuroscience, probably zero understanding of the human brain as well. Anyone who entertains this question is legit retarded.

Herp, why am I different from a rock.

Lolthisthread.jpg

[Anonymous No.4837888]

>>4837868
and in my periphery?

[Famous comedian Arnold Braunschweige !ArNiE7fdy6 No.4837892]

>>4837878

No your brain can name you, your brain recognises it own existence and names itself

[Anonymous No.4837879]

>>4837870
>mfw my parents named me

[Anonymous No.4837896]

>>4837888
Why should I give a fuck? When I was there, I'd see what you see. Individual experience doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.4837911]

>>4837875
Basically this.

No one explained correctly either.

or they got close but failed.
You are you because the specific cells and neurological framework that formed the body you are in created who you are.

Now you can keep arguing that this isn't what you wanted. but there is no other answer.
There is no secret order of the universe that determines who's who.
The only reason you exist is because you ARE everything that makes up yourself.
You wouldn't exist if your body didn't.

It's as simple as that. People need to stop thinking the mind is some separate entity that exists away from the body, and you wouldn't get so confused.

[Anonymous No.4837924]

I ignored every post but OP, so my apologies if someone else already posted this. Allow me to explain OP.

In this given universe you have laws which hitherto permeate throughout the entire universe or always exist given a certain type of event in a localized situation, such as relativity. The universe unfolded birthing stars which birthed heavier elements which led to the eventual formation of planets and atmospheric planets. Then on Earth over the course of billions of years, you had a repetitious experiment occurring where natural membranes would form trapping proteins. Each reaction behaved according to the chemistry of the given object. Eventually, probability allowed the experiment to continue and the membranes remained and they continued to react with their environment.

From this point forward, all structural development is a process of these protein filled membranes reacting with their environment. Over the course of billions of years, the proteins stored information inputted by the environment, and it is from this information that the protein adapted and reacted with the environment. Meanwhile, the membranes became more complex, becoming cells, multicellular organism, and eventually humans.

part 1

[Anonymous No.4837929]

>>4837924
part 2

Now to you. The person you are capable of being is a direct result of the physiological structure you were born with. Your genes allow your foundation to express across a given interval. These genes are a representation of your parents genes, which in totality, is a representation of all information gathered throughout the billions of years since those first membranes. You then have the cultural society which exists as an emergence of the complex interactions between humans, which influences they way you are to understand your reality. This culture is no different than a standard environment in its stimulus, but unique in that its existence is dependent on ours. It is compatibalistic.

And you are the very person you are because of the exact structure of your physiology and the exact way you were to interact with your environment.

That's it.

[Famous comedian Arnold Braunschweige !ArNiE7fdy6 No.4837941]

>>4837911

The atoms and elements that make up me were created in the death of a star correct.

So if the collection of stars over time have either ended soon or later than they did would i still be me?

[Anonymous No.4837972]

>>4837941
No, you'd be a dolphin.

[Anonymous No.4837964]

>>4837929
>>4837924

A very sophisticated but wrong answer. Nobody is suggesting any of that is not true and it fails to address the real question.

You are arguing that there is no "soul." That was never the matter at issue. The question is why subjective experience is possible. You haven't provided a physical explanation for the phenomenon of subjective experience.

All of these physiological descriptions of atoms and neurons are just an attempt to gild the lily. OP has asked a question which by its nature is unanswerable in the way that people are attempting to. The best you can do is just say that it's not a good question (as a lot of you have).

This whole thread is the philosophical equivalent of playing keep-away with a group of children. You will never give a satisfying answer to the OP's question if you keep using the language of science. All you'll do is cause yourselves to be more and more isolated from the substance of the question.

[Anonymous No.4837977]

>>4837941
Probably not.

Because the whole existence of live that eventually creates humans probably wouldn't exist. A change in a star explosion is a huge difference.

[Anonymous No.4838000]

>>4837977
life*

[Anonymous No.4838044]

>>4837964
I am not arguing that there is no soul. In fact, I didn't even mention anything relating to subjective experience.

Subjective experience aside, if I smashed a screwdriver through your face and pierced your brain and happened to pierce your dorsolateral PFC, we would know what facets of cognition would be affected.

However, I am not exactly sure what you are asking if it is not the above. Are you saying that I need to quantify the feeling itself? For example, the feeling of shooting heroin? We know exactly what causes the sensation, the parts of the body that experience the sensation, but the problem with your statement is that the "feeling" of something is very different than a linguistic assessment of it.

The feeling is simply the experience of the stimulus, nothing more. You can't convey the experience in words, it can only be experience, but this does not mean it is non physical. And it is very physical. If you are asking "Well, why does it feel like 'this'", I'd like you to explain what exactly "this" is. I would assume that you can't, without going into a circle of semantic masturbation, at which point you will realize that language is ultimately self regressive, with definitions defining other things. So it is not a limitation of physicalism, but a limitation of our means to explicate, because as of this time, we can't directly convey experience, we can only allude to them with words.

(On a side note, we have conducted some experiments where we have figured out which parts of the brain to stimulate to "simulate" a certain experience).

This is because knowledge is not absolute, there is a certain level of assumption made in our analysis of reality. More so in our explication.

This has to do with the heuristic nature of our mind. Your move amigo.

[Anonymous No.4838053]

The answer, obviously, is that "we don't know."
The more appropriate question here, OP, is "how could we find the answer?"

[Anonymous No.4838060]

Also, if OP or that other poster are still here, consider this:

The question you're asking is "why" something is the way that it is. In other words, you're presupposing that there is either a teleological reason or a prior cause for subjective experience. This might be why the question is so confusing. Isn't it possible that some things do not have a cause but simply are BECAUSE they are? By complete accident or chance? Without any reason for being so? And if you always were only "you," and never were anyone else, doesn't the fact that "you are" transcend time and become completely detached from any cause and effect relationship you might try to posit?

Imagine your parents at the moment of deciding whether or not to copulate and ultimately create you. If they choose not to, you are never born. But if they choose to, you are born, you grow up, and you have all of these subjective experiences that you wind up having. But the occurrence of those relies entirely on whether or not you are born. If you are not, you never wind up being alive or occupying a single body.

So "you" exist in a metaphysical way, as a concept, detached from physiological circumstances. You would have existed in that way even had you never been born. The only difference is that you have.

You can call this dangling hypothetical a "soul" if you want. Whether it's at all meaningful to call it that is another question.

>>4838044

No, you are still missing the point entirely. It's possible that we aren't explaining it very well. Check out that wikipedia link I provided above if it still interests you, and be patient. And please be open to the possibility that you are just not understanding the question... I realize it sounds arrogant to say, but based on your answer I'm quite confident that you still don't really see the point that's being made.

[Miodefenseforce No.4838079]

>>4838060
>So "you" exist in a metaphysical way, as a concept, detached from physiological circumstances. You would have existed in that way even had you never been born. The only difference is that you have.
>metaphysical

Get out.

[Anonymous No.4838090]

>>4838079

Are you saying concepts aren't metaphysical?

Can you tell me where I can find the number 0? How big is it? What does it look like?

[Anonymous No.4838093]

>>4837911
>You are you because the specific cells and neurological framework that formed the body you are in created who you are.
In part, but you can't assume that is all there is to it, unless you automatically discard all the evidence of mind that doesn't seem to be controlled by cells.

>Now you can keep arguing that this isn't what you wanted. but there is no other answer.
Certainly we know many ways the body is critical to self, but it does not have to be all the answer.

>The only reason you exist is because you ARE everything that makes up yourself.
Well, yes, the contents of self are all the contents of self.
Unless you mean that the contents of self are only and all the physical contents of self, which is not certain at all.

>You wouldn't exist if your body didn't.
That doesn't help; it means only that body is required, which we agree upon.

>>It's as simple as that. People need to stop thinking the mind is some separate entity that exists away from the body, and you wouldn't get so confused.
If we learned that, it would indeed make the whole question easy.
We have not learned that.

[Anonymous No.4838105]

>>4838060
>So "you" exist in a metaphysical way, as a concept, detached from physiological circumstances. You would have existed in that way even had you never been born.

But this presupposes that there was a moment in which reality encountered probabilistic divergence in which a could or could not be born. Do you have any evidence to support this claim? All other evidence conducted in all other science points to causal determination.

Sure, right now you can abstractly think about the concept, but this does not mean that is exists beyond your mind and the collective minds which empathize with an interpreted idea of your abstraction. So in what way does this validate the soul?

>No, you are still missing the point entirely....Check out that wikipedia link I provided above if it still interests you, and be patient. And please be open to the possibility that you are just not understanding the question... I realize it sounds arrogant to say, but based on your answer I'm quite confident that you still don't really see the point that's being made.

You have refuted nothing I have said and instead reverted to the claim that I somehow do not understand "qualia". It is a very easily understood concept, and I explained exactly why it is so difficult to convey. Unless you can refute my reasoning, as of this time you are incorrect.

And in reference to your "hard problem of consciousness", it really isn't a hard problem. It is dominantly accepted that consciousness is the emergent property of the dynamic interactions of the neural networks of the brain and its interaction with that which is external of itself. (I say dominantly, because you always have opposition) Please don't use a wikipedia link as justification for a concept which has been dealt with at higher levels of academia it makes it seem like you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.4838112]

>>4838090
I am saying he wouldn't exist at all, there is no metaphysical to it at all.


>>4838093
>unless you automatically discard all the evidence of mind that doesn't seem to be controlled by cells.

Your "mind" is not separated from your brain, you need your cells to carry out brain functions.

[Anonymous No.4838117]

>>4838090
It depends on which definition of 0 I am adhering to. But once we explicitly define the properties of 0, I can very easily do all of the following, because the concept of 0 is a product of human consensus validation. Until we adequately define the properties you are seeking it is not that 0 is metaphysical, it is that until this time, 0 is undefined in regards to those given properties.

[Anonymous No.4838126]

>>4837964
>>The question is why subjective experience is possible.
Because we are always limited to our subjective stimuli.
or, backward;
We do not have collective experience because we do not have the same thoughts.
We do not have direct access to other perspectives because we cannot access other's stimuli.
We do not share stimuli, so we cannot have common experiences.

(I want to use 'qualia' here, but the people who grab onto that word in this forum have really muddled it all up, and many now have little idea what it means.)

>You haven't provided a physical explanation for the phenomenon of subjective experience.
Sure we have; same as above.
Assuming you are key term is 'subjective' -- if the key term is otherwise, please say so.

[Anonymous No.4838127]

> scientific explanation for a subject delving into meta-physica and gestalt
>mfw

[Anonymous No.4838131]

>>4838105

>in what way does this validate the soul?

That's not my point. I'm trying to problematize OP's question by showing how it may not be something worthy of a scientific formulation of "what caused THIS to be the case." I am not trying to prove the existence of a soul. If anything I'm trying to show how OP's question might be a trick question.

Also, I'm afraid I still think you don't understand qualia. That's not going to make you happy, but I can't really keep discussing it with you until you admit that the hard problem is a legitimate problem. Describing the physiological cause of "feelings" with reference to the chemical reactions that cause them is not addressing the question.

Your hostility and your attack on my character are beside the point as well.

[Anonymous No.4838134]

>>4838127
No it wouldn't be a problem if people would stop thinking the brain and mind are separated.

[Anonymous No.4838143]

>>4838140

Heh. I wasn't the guy who brought it up.

[Anonymous No.4838140]

>>4838131
>qualia

EVERYONE PACK UP AND GO HOME, WE'RE DONE HERE.

THREAD JUST TURNED FROM SHIT TO 5 MILLION TONS OF SHIT.

[Anonymous No.4838148]

>>4838143
You were the first one i saw to use it.

If you weren't the first one then the threads been 5 million tons of shit for a while.

[Anonymous No.4838154]

>>4838131
>Also, I'm afraid I still think you don't understand qualia. That's not going to make you happy, but I can't really keep discussing it with you until you admit that the hard problem is a legitimate problem. Describing the physiological cause of "feelings" with reference to the chemical reactions that cause them is not addressing the question.

But as I just said, there is no one in neuroscience who thinks it is a legitimate problem. Philosophers and wikipedia is irrelevant in this context. And I did not simply describe the physiological causes of feelings. I will repost what i posted above, because maybe you missed it. But this directly addresses the cause for the inability to explain the "feeling in of itself".

The feeling is simply the experience of the stimulus, nothing more. You can't convey the experience in words, it can only be experience, but this does not mean it is non physical. And it is very physical. If you are asking "Well, why does it feel like 'this'", I'd like you to explain what exactly "this" is. I would assume that you can't, without going into a circle of semantic masturbation, at which point you will realize that language is ultimately self regressive, with definitions defining other things. So it is not a limitation of physicalism, but a limitation of our means to explicate, because as of this time, we can't directly convey experience, we can only allude to them with words.

(On a side note, we have conducted some experiments where we have figured out which parts of the brain to stimulate to "simulate" a certain experience).

This is because knowledge is not absolute, there is a certain level of assumption made in our analysis of reality. More so in our explication.

This has to do with the heuristic nature of our mind.


Please tell me how this is incorrect.

[Anonymous No.4838157]

>>4838148

I was the third person. But It's nice to know I stand out.

[Anonymous No.4838174]

>>4838134
'science' is the empirical method of acquiring information. It deals in the physical.
OP is asking about a soul.
If you want to talk about neurology that's fine but you first have to convince OP that consciousness is not magic. Something science doesn't prove because you can't measure magic.
It is proofed by reasoning i.e. common sense i.e. philosophy AKA not-science

[Anonymous No.4838180]

>>4838154

>why does it feel like "this"

That's not the question either and it never was. The question is why it appears that I am one person and not another person. Qualia is just a useful way of thinking about this bigger question. It's easy to see how they can get confused.

>You can't convey the experience in words, it can only be experience, but this does not mean it is non physical.

You're making a jump from "non-physical" to "supernatural." It's a common error that people on both sides of this issue tend to make. A lot of people tout the hard problem as a possible proof for an immortal ghost that will live forever in heaven with Baby Jesus. But that's a ridiculous leap. Saying something is "non-physical" just means it exists as a concept, an idea. Which you could argue exists in people's brains, is stored there, etc. And if all people died, it would be gone. But then we're arguing about ontology, which is something else altogether.

I'm positing the possibility that the subjective "you" exists conceptually and not physically. You might say that something that does not exist physically does not exist. If we're going to agree that non-physical things do not exist, then obviously we're both saying that the subjective "you" does not exist. See my point?

I'm trying to reduce OP's question to its bare bones to show that it's inherently flawed. You seem to think I'm arguing that there is a supernatural element of human existence. I think that's how we got our wires crossed.

[Anonymous No.4838183]

>>4838174
So are you implying you can have cognitive functions without a brain?

Because that is what you are implying.

[Anonymous No.4838184]

>>4838105
It is dominantly accepted that consciousness is the emergent property of the dynamic interactions of the neural networks of the brain and its interaction with that which is external of itself. (I say dominantly, because you always have opposition)

that dominance in science is not because there are no problems with it, but because there are no problems we can experiment with, no sensors to use, no amounts to quantify.

There are still problems asserting all mind and consciousness occurs in brain, but until there are some tools and data, science just has to ignore it.

Psychology does not, but psychology has issues following scientific rigor.

[Anonymous No.4838191]

>>4838184
Thank you.

Finally someone with sense instead of these /x/ posters.

[Anonymous No.4838202]

Limited communication doesn't proof anything
"I can't fax you this blueprints since my fax is broken that proves that buildings just can't be recorded into paper and are obviously made out of fairy dust"

[Anonymous No.4838200]

>>4838184

I wish more people were willing to think of it this way. As it stands, the "hard problem" is just a cleverly-constructed riddle that tends to mislead people more than anything else. If it's not measurable in science, it's not worth the interest of science. Nor is it worth it for philosophers to try asking scientists to address it.

[Anonymous No.4838213]

>>4838202

Nobody is claiming it proves anything.

[Anonymous No.4838221]

>Demanding science answer philosophical questions
I think you need to rethink your request, shockingly mathmatics and science can't answer all questions, such is the nature of knowledge.

[Anonymous No.4838235]

>>4838183
Of course I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that's what OP implies and that this just isn't a /sci/ subject.

But why am I even answering your question we're totally digressing from the original subject.

[Anonymous No.4838239]

I bet OP is religious

[Anonymous No.4838249]

>>4838180
As I said in my first post, I ignored the entire thread but OP, if that was the question than I have a very simple answer to it.

>The question is why it appears that I am one person and not another person.

Because I am not the same person. One variable can lead to vastly different outcomes in complex systems. Was this seriously the question you were trying to address? This is like baby tier shit.

>I'm positing the possibility that the subjective "you" exists conceptually and not physically.
>I am positing that the idea of myself exists conceptually.

All knowledge exists subjectively. What is your point? That doesn't mean it is nonphysical. What does this have to do with anything I posted? You have yet to tell me why you believe I am incorrect

[Anonymous No.4838253]

>>4838213
Nobody is claiming that anybody is claiming that any sort of proof is involved. (Ow my head)

I'm describing the thought process of qualia supporters with a silly metaphor, neither of us claims it's proof but it's a concept. And I'm saying it's fucking stupid.

[Anonymous No.4838252]

>>4838235
But you can answer is question perfectly fine without using philosophy.

He is made up of the cells that create the neural network of his brain.

as >>4838184
said there is no separation between brain and mind and as such the philosophical part doesn't matter.

If OP needs some kind of metaphysical explanation that can't even be grounded in reality to have some semblance of an answer he should just go ask religion.

[Anonymous No.4838264]

>>4838184
>>4838200
But I already addressed the reasons why it is a problem. Also, there is a strong relationship with neuroscience on psychology, and justly so, neuroscience often explores much more qualitative than quantitative. It isn't that science is ignoring the problem, it is that the problem is a problem of language and conveyance. There is no problem beyond that. The sensation itself is the exact result of my structure interacting with given input. It is my qualitative assessment of the experience and the aforementioned conveyance which leads to misunderstanding, because I lack the completeness to directly convey experience.

fuck why I am repeating myself.

[Anonymous No.4838288]

>>4838249

That's because I don't believe that you're incorrect. If you ask me how to get to Amsterdam and I say "carrots are orange," I am not incorrect.

I'm trying to explain why OP's question is problematic. You didn't address OP's question but gave a very common response, which you gave in a greatly simplified (and therefore better) form in this post.

Your answer is "because it is." If I asked why the sky is blue and you said "because it is," you aren't addressing the question or taking it seriously. You are hostile to the question.

>This is like baby tier shit.

This is an example of what I mean. You don't think it's a good question and that's because you don't understand what it's really asking. It's nothing to be ashamed of and it's certainly no reason to get defensive or take it personally the way you are. But if you aren't willing to put forth any effort because you suspect it's simple and your answer is satisfying enough for you, then you won't really approach an answer that satisfies people who take the question seriously.

I haven't ever really disagreed with anything you've said. To use my above example, you're still telling me that carrots are orange, and I'm still telling you that's not the question.

[Anonymous No.4838284]

>>4837596
my answer may not be correct, but here goes:
every human being comes into the world 99% blank, and 1% genetically programmed predisposition to ceratin thoughts, disease, characteristics, etc, this 1% is what binds you, it is what gives you your conciousness, it is, for lack of a beter word, your soul.....everything that happens to you is like transformation or opperation done on your soul, but you, that genetic bit, creates the parent function, creates you, creates your soul.....or perhaps im just a retarded fuck, who knows

[Anonymous No.4838301]

OP, are you me from a few years ago?

I used to ponder this same question a lot and I haven't reached any tangible conclusion yet. First I thought about the 'qualia' (even before I had heard the word). That there's some element in our brains that science hasn't unravelled yet that explains this personal experience, not necessarily anything mystical but something that hasn't been found. Then I gave up this viewpoint and acquired a wholly opposite view, that there isn't anything but the physical world and there's no qualia nor consciousness nor experiences. I am experiencing things as much as any non-living object, pain for example is just a physical response to damaging stimuli and pain only motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. There isn't any inherent qualities to it, it isn't 'good' or 'bad', it's just a physical response etc etc.

Then I slowly gave up this viewpoint also and settled somewhere in the middle, consciousness emerges from the physical world somehow and there's nothing else to it. I'm not entirely sure if this satisfies me, but I stopped thinking about the question nevertheless.

[Anonymous No.4838302]

>>4838288
>I need a scientific explanation for WHY AM I ME.
>why do i have to experience the life of said retard and not someone else or an entirely different animal

I answered this. Nothing more.

Then suddenly!

>ad hominen, straw man, etc. etc.

The trolling is weak in this one.

[Anonymous No.4838308]

>>4838180
>Why it appears that I am one person and not another

Because you see with your eyes and think with your own head. Your head is not physically connected to the other persons head, so you cannot physically perceive what they perceive. Why you are trying to tie non physical things to physical things I cannot understand. The chemicals and photons that your eyes calculate and observe are real physical things that affect your mind physically. If you are trying to describe some magickal soul stuff then it is 100% impossible to discuss it, because we can only observe physical things.

[Anonymous No.4838319]

>>4837596
Ever watch 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Explaining why humans are humans without using some magic fairly soul God bullshit is very difficult when it comes to details, unless you somehow majored in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Philosophy and Psychology.

Basically, the Higgs boson then quarks then particles then atoms then molecules then solids then organs make functional body; sometimes you make nervous system which makes brain which makes thoughts and shit and then thougths make action then philosophical theory bullshit badabing badaboom youre wasting your life masturbating and 4chan

[Anonymous No.4838320]

>>4838308
>It's almost as if six or seven different people answered this already.

[Anonymous No.4838336]

>>4838288
Yes, he answered your question in a way that you didn't like it, go away. Its the right answer, and its a common answer because its right. You just want a different answer, and there is no other one, go away. I don't know whatever your hidden agenda is but we won't help you with it, sorry. Also, why the hell are you trying to argue if the OP has a trick question? It's his fucking question, stop putting words in his mouth in an attempt to turn this into a shit storm. If its a trick question, he should stop dicking around and ask it more precisely, so stop arguing semantics and go away.

[Anonymous No.4838331]

>>4838302

I know you answered it. I'm just saying your answer isn't satisfactory.

At this point I don't really think it's worth arguing about anymore, though. You are thoroughly convinced that your answer is satisfactory, even though people such as myself don't find it to be. When I try to explain why it's not a satisfying answer, you just give the same answer again. You aren't willing to seriously consider whether or not you are in the wrong, which is what's causing you so much confusion.

So enjoy your answer but please realize that it's not satisfying for everyone because it fails to grapple with the substance of the question. We're going in circles now and you're starting to be arrogant and bring things into this that don't belong here, so I think our conversation is over.

>>4838308

>why are you trying to tie non physical things to physical things

I'm not, in fact I've said above that the best way to answer this question is to keep physical and non-physical things as far removed from one another as possible.

>If you are trying to describe some magickal soul stuff then it is 100% impossible to discuss it, because we can only observe physical things.

Re-read my post. I'm stressing the fact that "non-physical" does not mean magical soul stuff. It just means non-physical.

[Anonymous No.4838346]

>>4838336

I'm going away because you are all growing hostile and no longer being rational or charitable or trying to take dissenting views seriously. It's a shame how that happens, but I guess philosophy isn't for everyone.

Have a nice day.

[Anonymous No.4838363]

>>4838288
>>That's because I don't believe that you're incorrect.
>>If you ask me how to get to Amsterdam and I say "carrots are orange," I am not incorrect.

Sure you are; because that question of correctness has two contexts.
it is a correct statement on its own, but it is an invalid statement as an aswer to the prompt.
Context matters, always. It might be assumed, and people might make errors there, but context always matters.

So, I'm suggesting both of you need to specify your contexts in order to communicate better.

[Anonymous No.4838366]

>>4837596
you are defined by what you are, form follows function

you are human

what does this mean?

this means you aren't like a rat, which mostly does instinct-based thinking

you were given the means to directly circumvent the millions of years of accumulated experiences encoded into the programming of your body, using your ability to think abstract thoughts for rapid self-improvement

tl;dr use your brain

[Anonymous No.4838361]

>>4838346
Philosophy

OR

How to reask the same question when you don't like the answer you get.

[Anonymous No.4838384]

>>4838331
I am perfectly willing to consider why I am wrong or unsatisfactory, but you have yet to tell me why. So my first reaction was to assume that you are either retarded, or a troll. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that you were a troll. But trust me, I am not one to cling to dogmatism of any kind, but first YOU must show me how I am incomplete or unsatisfying.

I responded as I did, because I don't want to waste my time on a troll. But if you are being serious, allow me to show you how you were being a straw man. I wasn't saying that a "carrot is orange'. I explained WHY the carrot is orange and WHAT orange is. My answer was never "because it is". Complex systems behave exactly like this, which is what we are, an emergence of a complex system. One variable and you have vastly different outcomes. This explains why one person is unique from another. As for the "appearance" it isn't an appearance, I really am different. Yet, there are similarities. I don't see what else needs to be addressed.

And in regards to your discourse on the subjective ideation of the self, I already agreed that the subjective concept of the self exists within the limitations of the mind, however, I do not believe it to be non physical. It is my perceptual reflection of the physical reality that I have experienced. For it to be non physical, it would somehow how to be independent of physical reality, which it is not. It just my understanding of that physical reality depending on the specific local interaction I've had with a given environment and my starting physiological structure.

But once again, if there is a profound aspect of the question I am not satisfying, please feel free to elucidate.

[Anonymous No.4838428]

I need a scientific explanation for WHY AM I ME.

>Behold the old nature vs nuture arguement and pretty much every other philosophical discourse ever. For within these is the answer

why does my soul or whatever the fuck reside in this retard's body, and why do i have to experience the life of said retard and not someone else or an entirely different animal?

>Such are the mysteries of life and death, the mere fact life exists flys in the face of logic, the fact anything exists flys in the face of logic (Hello first causes). The answer to this depends on what you think, I'm loathe to expound any further as it will involve a discussion of religion and who knows what derailment that would cause

why is it animals that have the ability experience anyway?

>Do they experience things they way we do? We commonly like to think of them as purely instinctual, yet some show marvelous intelligence and learning capcity. As for why? Why do you experience? I imagine it's much the same reason for them, I'm also sure many faiths which include reincarnation would have some points to offer on this, probably more articulate than mine.

or can something like a rock ponder about its own existence? if not why not, and what makes me different from a rock?

>You ever have a conversation with a rock? I haven't, fundementally we're both collections of atoms, mine are more varied and more complexly arranged. Is it this specific compisition and arrangement that gives me the ability to think or something more. If it's something more, perhaps that rock is thinking. Personally I consider organic life a logical abberation and it's a miracle(in the supernatural sense rather than the quirk of probability sense) it exists at all in the first place, nevermind questions about the nature of the soul I'm still pondering the fact we exist

[Anonymous No.4838439]

>>4838384

Let me try to simplify the discourse a bit.

>"Why am I me and nobody else?"
>"Because there are multiple people in the world, each one unique from the other, and one of them happens to be you."

This is the answer you are giving. It is not incorrect. It doesn't need a huge biological discourse. It's a very simple answer. The response:

>"But my question is, why am I me and not another one?"

The person asking the original question feels you've missed the substance of the question. This is because their "why" isn't referring to, "what is the physiological cause of experience," but rather, "what caused me to occupy this particular body as opposed to any others?" Or "for what reason am I this body as opposed to any others?"

If you give the same answer again, the feeling is that you've missed the point of the question.

I've just gone a step further and said that the question itself might be problematic. You are insisting on the original answer, which I think is correct, but I also understand why it is not satisfactory.

[Anonymous No.4838446]

>>4838428

you want an answer to why you are you, look for it in philosophy and religious texts

there is no scientific explanation at this time as to why you exist in the first place, it's one of the mysteries

[Anonymous No.4838465]

>>4838428
As an addition to my post here, if the likes of plato and socrates couldn't figure this one out I doubt a group of 4channers will come with an answer for you OP

[Anonymous No.4838469]

>>4838439

I should give a simpler answer to the question that I think is agreeable.

>"Why am I me and nobody else?"
>"There's no reason. It was determined by chance. You had to be somebody, and you can only be one person, and the cosmic dice decided that this is the person you are."

That's the answer I would give. Do you see how it's dealing with a different sense of the "why?"

[Anonymous No.4838480]

>>4838439
>"But my question is, why am I me and not another one?"
>"what caused me to occupy this particular body as opposed to any others?"

The universe is unfolding along an imagined entropic arrow of time where a given phenomological object moves forward from a state of less entropy to more entropy, this is undoubtedly true for information, statistics, and thermodynamics. Or in other words "The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum."

If we are assume that the laws which govern the universe are and have always permeated throughout the entirety of itself, then we have set limitations in the way the entropic phenomena can interact. I say assume, because we do not have complete knowledge of the universe, but hitherto have encountered a violation.

Given the above, you can observably staticize the movement and continually becoming and unbecoming of the universe relative to the first reaction and the subsequent relative to the aforementioned limitations imposed by various laws.

All of this lead to the point in time in which you would come to be as you are as that particular person.

[Anonymous No.4838487]

>>4838469
It isn't chance, there are very specific reasons or "whys". Or in other words, predetermination. However, if you are asking for "existential why", then you will find no answer, because such things do not exist beyond the human mind and possibly various other high level mammals.

[Anonymous No.4838498]

OP, if you are still here, this is the unhelpful bit:

>Why here, why me, why now?

This is an intentionally vague set of questions that, without any specific context or limitations, cannot be answered.
That is why exactly these words are often put into scripture -- because they want to ask big vague questions. It is called a vague prompt; it was never intended to be specific enough to answer. (That's why, in order to approach them, someone has to give them context.)
Scripture that wants to help wants you to choose your own context and seek answers in that guideline: scripture that wants to evade or cannot support itself simply avoids specific questions because none of them can be answered, guides or not.

So here are possible ways to specify what you mean:
Why here, why me, why now?
- 'here' as in location of your body, or on Earth, or in a city or family, or as part of the human race?
- 'me' as in why not another person, why do you have your character, why are you subject to the environment, stress, class, status, state of humanity, why as in how could you be better, improve, or change, why as in who gets credit for you/
- 'now' as in each moment, today, this era of humanity, this person in history, this location in time and space, why does time pass, what should I be doing, what is my goal, what are we all doing, for whom do we live?

[Anonymous No.4838504]

>>4837596
you just realized that science actually KNOWS fuck all

[Anonymous No.4838522]

>>4838480

Again, you're just describing the causes that create all things, including people. That's not the kind of "why" that's being asked. The problem is in the question and in the mind of the person asking. They are expecting there to be some explanation for their isolation in a particular time and place, the fact that they are one and not another. There are causes but none of them explains why I am this one person and not another.

The question seems to assume that a choice was made to make me one person and not another. But that's not what happened. Whether I ended up being born as myself as opposed to Elton John or Adolf Hitler is pure chance.

>>4838487

>It isn't chance
I'm not saying the physical universe happened without causes. I'm saying the answer to "why am I me and not another person" is that there IS no reason. Nobody decided that "you" would be a particular person. It's just a matter of luck.

[Anonymous No.4838560]

>>4838522
What you are looking for is cause and effect I think. I killed a duck, so it's dead. I chopped off its head, so none of the other ducks' heads are chopped off, only that one. The one that is dead is the one that has his head chopped off. And I chopped off his head specifically because I picked him out because he was alone by shore, not the ones on the beach. So you are you because you were the sperm that was in your father's dick that got put in the belly of your mother and got to the egg first so you were born. That is why you are you, you were that group of molecules that was that sperm that was born and raised and turned into a full grown babby.

[Anonymous No.4838565]

> WHY AM I ME
> AM I ME
> ME
> 2012 cognitive neuroscience
> Implying a persistent self model of any kind
> mfw

[Anonymous No.4838575]

>>4838560

you sick fuck

[Anonymous No.4838606]

>>4838522
There is an explanation. There are very specifics "whys" that led you to become who you are. Also a "cause" is a why. As I said, if you are asking for existential purpose, you won't find it because it doesn't exist.

>They are expecting there to be some explanation for their isolation in a particular time and place,

I did explain this. The reasons would follow the same causal origination situation as the previous. For example why do children of certain ethnic origin prefer food of their ethnic culture? This is all causal. And this quality is an aspect of your "self".

>Whether I ended up being born as myself as opposed to Elton John or Adolf Hitler is pure chance.

No it isn't, I explicitly refuted this. There are causal reasons to all of this.

[Anonymous No.4838624]

>>4837704
>philosophical
no it's not. more or less sociological question

[Anonymous No.4838623]

One more question everyone: why is it, that you may go through dramatic changes during your lifetime, but you are still the same 'you' at the moment of birth (or the first time the individual achieves selfhood) than you are the moment you pass away? Or is this wrong? You would think, that the difference between the 'birth you' and 'dying you' would be far larger than the difference between you and some other fellow that has similar qualities that you have.

Why is it, that when you travel through space and time, that you eventually inhabit the 'dying you' who is far different from the 'birth you' and you do not inhabit the fellow with similar qualities? That fellow is after all less different from you than the 'dying you'?

[Anonymous No.4838641]

>>4837596
question is stupid and is answered by science already. It's simple genetics i would guess. Your parents had sex, their genes crossed, and that made you. You are who you are because of your social environment. Like your morals and behaviors were shaped by the surrounding culture. However you reacted to that is entirely up to you though. Judging by the fact that you see yourself as a retard, I'm guessing you seriously see yourself pretty low and must have low self esteem.

[Anonymous No.4838665]

>>4838105
>And in reference to your "hard problem of consciousness", it really isn't a hard problem. It is dominantly accepted that consciousness is the emergent property of the dynamic interactions of the neural networks of the brain and its interaction with that which is external of itself. (I say dominantly, because you always have opposition) Please don't use a wikipedia link as justification for a concept which has been dealt with at higher levels of academia it makes it seem like you have no idea what you are talking about.

> Please don't use a wikipedia link as justification for a concept which has been dealt with at higher levels of academia
>a concept which has been dealt with at higher levels of academia
Where and when? By whom? Can you give any names of the authors? Links?

[Anonymous No.4838698]

>>4838606

I give up. No offense.

I agree with everything you're saying. The only thing I'm asserting is that you misunderstand the question. I have been on both sides of this issue. I've come across your answer. I have been doubtful of your answer. Then I came around to a more satisfying answer by reconsidering the question.

I think you need to understand the substance of the question at an intuitive level. You are still not doing that. I'm trying very hard to help you, but I guess I'm not very good at explaining it. And the more I try, the more convinced you are in your own correctness. And you don't see why I'm unconvinced, or why your answer won't convince people.

The only thing I'm trying to explain is why your answer is unconvincing, and it's centralized in the question, not in the answer. More detail doesn't help your answer because it's so simple and doesn't address the substance of the question, which is the "why."

I don't know how else to explain this. Maybe I'll try a different way.

How about

>"Mom, why do I have no arms?"
>"Because you were born without arms."
>"But why?"
>"Because of your DNA."
>"But why?"

Do you see how the question is changing by being rephrased? Ultimately it's what someone called an "existential" why. Then you can say things like

>"Because God hates you."
>"Because you were a bad person in a past life."
Or, you can use my answer:
>"There is no reason. It's just bad luck."

Do you see how it's a different question?

>>4838623

It's an illusion created by the phenomenon of memory. There's no lateral equivalent to memory. I don't "recollect" the experiences of others the way I recollect the experiences of my former self. This is what gives me a comprehensive identity.

>>4838665

The Wikipedia article can.

[Anonymous No.4838718]

>>4838665
sure

http://www.nature.com/pr/journal/v65/n3/abs/pr200950a.html

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432808006542

this one is my favorite ^

the following two are also most excellent

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/ce/2000/00000001/00000001/art00003

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2001/00000008/f0020009/1230

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661308001514

[Anonymous No.4838753]

>>4838698
>It's an illusion created by the phenomenon of memory. There's no lateral equivalent to memory. I don't "recollect" the experiences of others the way I recollect the experiences of my former self. This is what gives me a comprehensive identity.
Thank you for a good answer. Only thing that bothers me though, is your use of the word "illusion". We are talking about subjective experiences here, and "illusion" is in a way experiencing something, so it doesn't really mean anything in this context.

>The Wikipedia article can.
What part do you mean? this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness#Deflationary_accounts ?

Is Daniel Dennett an authority to you?

[Anonymous No.4838761]

If this question is really about why you occupy your body than it is indeed stupid, as you don't occupy a body you are a body ( your conciousness is the result of the order of the atoms in your brain or even the whole body, bla bla) but I guess this has already been adressed by the other posters.

The only way I can think of this question being unaswerable is if it were "Why does my bodily structure result in my conciousness and not another one".

This we can't answer because we don't know enough (or anything) about how a conciousness is developed.

But I don't think OP thought that far as he asked whether a rock can think and why not which by the way I would answer with there not being enough interaction between the rock and the environment and the rock and itself. ( no sensory organs, no neurons processing data, just solid nearly stationary atoms)

[Anonymous No.4838770]

>>4838718
Oh. Thanks. I can't really say anything about these articles now, but I sure check them some time.

[Anonymous No.4838767]

>>4838698
>"Mom, why do I have no arms?"
>"Because you were born without arms."
>"But why?"
>"Because of your DNA."
>"But why?"

It would not ever approach infinite regressive. I will show you at which point it stops. "Why was my DNA coded in such a way that I had no arms?"

The only reason one would not have arms is because either DNA was not coded for arms or the gene was not activated. There is no other reason. Anything beyond this is a different question.

Yet, you will say "But then why was the DNA not coded for arms, or why was the gene not activated!" Which too has answers. Eventually this will lead to questions such as "Well what causes the strings to vibrate at Planck's Length!"

But seriously, this is probably the stupidest logic I have ever encountered in my entire life. What you are stating is that essentially for any question to be satisfied, you must have complete understanding of everything. Questions can not be answered in realms and disciplines, but they must be understood in absolutism.

I sincerely hope that you never approach any academic research in your entire life and either stay contained to manual labor, office work, or the application of research.

[Anonymous No.4838782]

>>4838753
>Is Daniel Dennett an authority to you?

Judging by his capacity for logic and reasoning, your inquiry is most likely representative of the actuality.

[Anonymous No.4838789]

>>4838767

I have nothing to prove to you. You're just not getting it, and you seem to think I'm attacking you by implying that you're not.

The fact that you're lashing out at me and attacking my intellectual integrity by undermining my credentials and making unwarranted assumptions about me (which were never in issue) is proof that I should walk away from this conversation. I hope someday you'll reconsider your position.

[Anonymous No.4838816]

>Why I am me
But you're not. You're just the commulative of your experiences.
If you were to, say, suffer brain damage that caused amnesia a la Bourne, you'd be a completely different person.
I'm sure it sucks to be losing that debate about religion you're having on Youtube, but the reality is that you won't outlive your death (fucking moronic oxymorons) and your religion is fiction.

[Anonymous No.4838817]

>>4838789
The fact that you have failed at lucidly explicating the question nearly 10 times now tells me that you have little if any understanding of the question itself. Given that is an undefined question, and that I have answered every single inquiry prior without flaw, I see no reason why you should be unsatisfied. However, I think I know exactly what is happening in your mind.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/

Picture very fucking related. It is actually pretty hilarious now that i see it. What really made me believe that it was happening was when you said "Use your intuition."

Ha ha.

But to paraphrase the article.

>So why might someone feel an impulse to go on arguing whether the object is really a blegg?

[Anonymous No.4838832]

>>4838767
Richard Feynman has a video on this sort of questioning. He thinks it's silly.

[Anonymous No.4838826]

>>4838817
>This diagram from Neural Categories shows two different neural networks that might be used to answer questions about bleggs and rubes. Network 1 has a number of disadvantages—such as potentially oscillating/chaotic behavior, or requiring O(N2) connections—but Network 1's structure does have one major advantage over Network 2: Every unit in the network corresponds to a testable query. If you observe every observable, clamping every value, there are no units in the network left over.

This is the most important part:

>>>Network 2, however, is a far better candidate for being something vaguely like how the human brain works: It's fast, cheap, scalable—and has an extra dangling unit in the center, whose activation can still vary, even after we've observed every single one of the surrounding nodes.

>>>>Which is to say that even after you know whether an object is blue or red, egg or cube, furred or smooth, bright or dark, and whether it contains vanadium or palladium, it feels like there's a leftover, unanswered question: But is it really a blegg?

[Anonymous No.4838828]

>>4837670
What the fuck do you even mean by "why"'? It's absurd to ponder the "why" before acknowledging the "how" and it's retarded to address the "how" without defining the what.
That's how we figure out stuff, OP:
What>How>Why

[Anonymous No.4838831]

>>4838826
>>This is a great gap to cross, and I've seen it stop people in their tracks. Because we don't instinctively see our intuitions as "intuitions", we just see them as the world. When you look at a green cup, you don't think of yourself as seeing a picture reconstructed in your visual cortex—although that is what you are seeing—you just see a green cup. You think, "Why, look, this cup is green," not, "The picture in my visual cortex of this cup is green."

>>>Before you can question your intuitions, you have to realize that what your mind's eye is looking at is an intuition—some cognitive algorithm, as seen from the inside—rather than a direct perception of the Way Things Really Are.

>>>People cling to their intuitions, I think, not so much because they believe their cognitive algorithms are perfectly reliable, but because they can't see their intuitions as the way their cognitive algorithms happen to look from the inside.


all of my lol

[Anonymous No.4838856]

>>4838782
But he's a philosophist! Didn't you say that this was solved in the realm of science?

[Anonymous No.4838905]

>>4838789
What exactly are you asking, without all of the useless fluff? Just because you are too retarded to actually voice what you mean doesn't mean that everyone else in the thread is stupid, you must have a problem with the definition of words or something.

[Anonymous No.4838962]

The only answer that I think makes any sense is that you are not you. A point of view, consciousness, is necessarily linked to a physical being, and there is nothing else that distinguishes one point of view from another. That is to say, in fact you also see life out of my head, but your head doesn't get to know about it. Your observations are different from mine, obviously, but the observer is the same.

[Anonymous No.4838981]

>>4838905
Let's simplify the question a bit

Two exact clones. The clone is atom-by-atom, quark-by-quark identical to you. Here we have two exact brains, two individuals, one is me the other is you. If you clone yourself this way and kill yourself, does you consciousness transfer into the other person? What if you don't kill yourself? Is there something inherently magic that distinguishes me from you?

[Anonymous No.4838996]

>>4838981
There can never be two identical individuals in the manner you described

[Anonymous No.4839040]

>>4838996
Why not? Sure there can.

As quadrillions of years pass by, something very odd should happen. In eternity, even the rarest events get a chance to occur. Weird, bizarre phenomena that only happen once in a zillion years or so, become quite normal. Already, physicists know that in a vacuum, there are sometimes tiny little energy ‘blobs’. Little, random fluctuations of the so-called ‘quantum vacuum’. Out of nowhere, tiny particles pop in and out of existence. But theory predicts that on very, VERY rare occasions, the fluctuations should be a bit larger. Out of nowhere, an entire atom might appear! Or hey, the vacuum may even spit out a few of them!

In the VERY, VERY, VERY long run, the vacuum will even belch up complete planets, and beautiful stars, burning and all. Theoretically the vacuum should even churn out a complete solar system one day, identical to ours, with a planet Earth inhabited by people. "In an infinite amount of time, one day, I will reappear", as physicist Katherine Freese of Michigan University once put it.

Will that random quantum fluctuation of a person be the same person that you are now? Will you experience this life all over again?

[Anonymous No.4839052]

Your sense of self is part of what is being experienced, not the underlying structure of experience.

[Anonymous No.4839101]

>>4839040
because there would differences such as the frame of reference someone looks at an object which you couldn't supplement unless they were existing in the exact same space at every given moment.

[Anonymous No.4839108]

>>4838831

That article is a bit silly. N1 would say "depends how you define planet" and that's GOOD. Otherwise we would never be able to answer questions like "Is a dog a mammal?" If you just said "Dogs are furry and have four legs, this mammal silliness is not a question, no definition" you couldn't ever form categories and without forming categories we wouldn't have sets and without sets we would have god damn math. We need to ask "what are the sufficient and necessary conditions for membership given the agreed definition." If no definition is agreed upon you get philosophy, if one IS agreed upon you generally get math but in either case you MUST ask "is pluto a planet?"

[Anonymous No.4839125]

>>4839101
What if the universe is created again exactly the way it is now and all of the conditions you listed are true?

[Anonymous No.4839134]

>>4839108
No one ever claimed that either was ideal, the article was only illustrating how intuition causes one to feel as if part of the necessary requirements are missing from the question when they are in fact not because of the nature of the algorithm from which our mind functions.

[Anonymous No.4839141]

>>4839134
from the answer to the question*

[Anonymous No.4839148]

>>4839125
Then I would see no reason to believe that the given person would be any different than the other. However, why even entertain the idea? This is mental masturbation of the finest quality.

[Anonymous No.4839177]

>>4838981
The clones would be divergent and would experience their environments on two separate paths.

If you killed yourself your consciousness would not magically transfer to the other person. What mechanism would such a silly thing even operate by?

If you don't kill yourself you would still be a separate individual from your clone. You would have all the same foundation in terms of biology, DNA, neural structure, memories, etc. You would just be forming new actions, experiences, and memories for yourself.

What separates you are the two different brains running the two different consciousnesses. Nothing magic. If anything, it would be magic if they were somehow connected or could transfer consciousness between each other.

[Anonymous No.4839185]

>>4838981
>>If you clone yourself this way and kill yourself, does you consciousness transfer into the other person?
No reason to think so.
Consciousness doesn't seem to be mobile.
If both are living bodies, each has it's own consciousness, anyway.
All we know about one body dying suggests that consciousness is gone -- not that it tries to find other places to live.
I just have no idea why anyone would even imagine it moving to another body, or why you imagine exactness of the physical body is such a useful parameter. Is it drastic, desperate hope?

>>What if you don't kill yourself? Is there something inherently magic that distinguishes me from you?
Yes, independence, a separate mind, separated stimuli, and distinct frames of reference.

[Anonymous No.4839196]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2meOPk0ZHns

[Anonymous No.4839195]

>>4839040
It could never have the same experiences though due to the fact the expansion of the universe THIS exact moment will never happen again.

[Anonymous No.4839228]

>>4839040
>Will that random quantum fluctuation of a person be the same person that you are now? Will you experience this life all over again?

No, not at all, not in any way;
what that was describing is the monkeys-typing-shakespeare observation -- over enough time, random fluctuations result in everything.
It did NOT mean all events would happen, all places happen around it, all consciousness and awareness and everything else -- just that physical object. In a completely random place, far off in a completely different time.

I will restate it:
look at any small object nearby.
sometime in the history of the universe (including the past) those quantum fluctuations could create an object exactly alike to that, randomly, someplace.
Obviously, that someplace would be anywhere in the universe -- we're not talking about it appearing during your lifetime, or on Earth, or having experiences. Just the random appearance of that object, probably in space, and very likely sucked up by some star later.
I pictured a baseball; then imagined that some random fluctuation produces a vaguely similar object in some random location in open space. (It's random, it has nothing to do with how exact the similarity is any more than it is about location or time.)

That said, nothing about quantum fluctuations suggests we should expect to ever observe any matter. Again, someone looks to be latching onto desperate hope.

[Anonymous No.4839268]

>>4839125
>What if the universe is created again exactly the way it is now and all of the conditions you listed are true?

Then you'd be asking a completely different question -- if the universe is deterministic, and the start is the same in every respect, we expect the same universe at every further stage of it's life, too.
There is no use or meaning to such a question, though -- you would be better off looking at question of existence that isn't about rebuilding the universe or pretending stuff is 'exact in every way.'