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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Freedom]
    #14279996 - 04/12/11 07:56 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Freedom said:

The pattern of causation appears to be directional. fMRI is now capable of detecting your brain's decision before 'you' are. That is some damn incriminating evidence, but even without it we can see the broad pattern. Injuries to the head cause changes to the mind yet I can't even grow one extra head no matter how hard I try with my mind. Only in dreams does is my mind able to affect matter.





I'm pretty confident fMRI cannot detect decisions before you make them, and there's no decent scientific evidence of your claim to my knowledge, despite some bullshit popsci articles of the subject.  These claims are generally media hype of experiments correlating detected phenomena with particular choices that are detected before the person indicates their choice (such as by pushing a button).  What this proves is only that we can detect the choice (within severely constrained paramters) a person will indicate before they indicate it.  This doesn't neccesarily have anything to do with decision making or thinking: it could meerly observe phenomena caused by the choice before the physical indication of it is recieved.  For example: we wouldn't say a sensor that detects the slight movement of the finger before it fully depresses the button indicating the given choice as predicting or detecting the choice the individual would make before they make it, yet this is just as plausible an interpretation of the evidence as the one you put forth.  This is an example of media misrepresenting science.




Quote:

Greenvalley said:
Premise: Matter is necessary for consciousness. 
I like the premise, in order for consciousness to become manifest there must be a vehicle.

1. Ever heard of biocentrisim? in that theory consciousness makes matter
I personally belive that matter is just a dense expression of manifestation from a boundless, infinite, formless, 'root' or causeless cause. Gross matter is just the flowering of the universe and all of existence, the universe begins(seed), grows(formation of atoms, elements, planets, life, evolution) then reaches its greatest goal of flowering(spirit and matter in perfect unity in the form of self awareness), then goes back towards that formless, subjective root from where it came, only to die, and be reborn again, and on it goes forever. Thats what I think

2. Consciousness isa very broad term, thought, awareness, life force...
so there is more than just matter and consciousness
3. Matter does not produce consciousness but can greatly modify our experience of it.
Agree.





What is the point of this post?  I don't see any philosophical discussion at all.  That you might emotionally favor some option isn't relevant.  What basis do you have for your conclusions?  You've not presented any valid argument.

Quote:

Freedom said:
Premise: Matter is necessary for consciousness. 



Three possibilities for how consciousness interacts with matter:

1. Matter produces consciousness by itself.

If so, what is the recipe for consciousness? What is the mechanism by which matter produces consciousness? Is it the dancing ions flowing in and out of brain cells?

2. Matter produces consciousness in concert with something(s) else.

What is this mysterious 'something(s) else'?

3. Matter does not produce consciousness but can greatly modify our experience of it.

Oh I get it, our souls are being beamed into our brains which act as antenna and translators imaginators visualizers inspiration generators on and on and  onoters




What is the point of this post?  You list various possibilities, to what end?  The list of things that may be is endless, none of it is very philosophically relevant.  Do you have an argument for any of the claims made here or any reason to suspect their truth or usefulness?

You seem to fail to provide even a token justification for your very thesis.  It seems like you just presume it to be true for the hell of it and go on listing various other things that may be true.  What does this have to do with philosophyc?


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: NetDiver]
    #14280870 - 04/12/11 10:04 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Samurai Drifter said:
Quote:

Noteworthy said:
All we can measure are physical things, we cant measure consciousness.



We don't even have a good definition of "consciousness." What is it? Like quinn said, "please distinguish between the two terms."

I have difficulty seeing any ultimate distinction between observer (consciousness) and observed (matter)- to me there's only the sense of observation without any participants.




Very hard question to answer. This really is the biggest problem for the philosophy of mind. It is strange enough that SOME people can talk about their inner consciousness at all. To people who are aware of their consciousness, it is self evident. We come to understand that the word 'consciousness' applies to it because of the fact that it is used in philosophical debates regarding the problem of the mind. In the past, the word 'mind' sufficed.
But with the introduction of computers and idea of robotic minds, the word mind came to describe the content of our thoughts, rather than our experience of them. So consciousness became the new buzz word (it once simply meant being aware, then became self-awareness). But now we are coming to understand self awareness needs no experiential/qualia aspects, it simply requires self-referential content. So new words, such as 'qualia' came out to describe the qualities of experiences. However, over the decades, we have been able to use the word qualia to refer to qualities of the descriptive content of thought, rather than the experiential qualities that precede description. Now, the word qualia has almost changed into a computational model just like all other terms used to describe consciousness. And it seems like it will keep being the case. Since the mind is not part of the objective world (only brain activity and other physical phenomenon are), it can never be the subject of an inter-subjective science.
However, the introspective philosopher might base their whole ponderance of the universe on the elusive nature of their own existance. They will know that there is something about their experience that is not explained by physical phenomenon and then ask the question of 'what is the mind?'. Other people (such as modern scientific realists) will say 'it is a brain function!' but will then go on to describe brain functions as electrons and photons and protons, correlating with various behaviors like self reports or movement of limbs etc etc. Once the brain function is described, the philosopher is nowhere closer to their original goal than understanding that their inner experience is highly associated with physical phenomenon. But this does not mean it IS physical phenomenon.


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Invisiblequinn
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14282222 - 04/13/11 03:59 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

But this does not mean it IS physical phenomenon.




isnt a physical description simply a more accurate description of what we are reffering to (when we say something like 'that hurt'?

why should we assume we have these secretive incontestable 'inner states'? and what more could be said about them if not in physical terms?


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: quinn]
    #14282239 - 04/13/11 04:23 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I should not need to explain this - you either feel pain or you don't. I can't tell, but you can. You can't tell me, but if you feel it and are aware of this feeling then you will know it is there.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14282246 - 04/13/11 04:27 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

btw, you can't tell whether or not I can really feel pain or not.


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Invisiblequinn
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14282256 - 04/13/11 04:36 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

how do i even know what 'pain' IS? how do i know what i am referring to when i say it?

how do you know it doesnt just 'feel like' 'brain state X'?

wouldnt that be much more accurate?


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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: quinn]
    #14282266 - 04/13/11 04:49 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

the only difference between sayin

'i feel like i am in brain state X'
&
'i feel like i am in pain'

is that the brain state is falsifiable.
while pain is not. its a bit strange that humans could have access to some kind of knowledge that cannot be tested, proven or doubted... and they cant even describe exactly what it is :shrug:


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Offlineorison
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: quinn]
    #14282286 - 04/13/11 05:01 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

you know every time you got thru the DMT portal the fricking aliens always say "whats it matter" it sort of pissing me off now .. :minigun:


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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: orison]
    #14282305 - 04/13/11 05:10 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

:sadyes:


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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Freedom]
    #14282314 - 04/13/11 05:18 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Freedom said:
Premise: Matter is necessary for consciousness. 



Three possibilities for how consciousness interacts with matter:

1. Matter produces consciousness by itself.

If so, what is the recipe for consciousness? What is the mechanism by which matter produces consciousness? Is it the dancing ions flowing in and out of brain cells?

2. Matter produces consciousness in concert with something(s) else.

What is this mysterious 'something(s) else'?

3. Matter does not produce consciousness but can greatly modify our experience of it.

Oh I get it, our souls are being beamed into our brains which act as antenna and translators imaginators visualizers inspiration generators on and on and  onoters




Hdve you read Christian de Quincey's book called Radical Nature, ? He offers this theory. Matter is ALWAYS with consciousness. Consciousness is not a thing but is how matter feels-from-the-inside. So you cannot say matter is IN the brain or IN matter, because it is not a thing and thus as no location. So he advises not to fall into trap of talking about conciousness using matter-talk. Ie saying eg--'consciousness is quantum waves' etc etc because that is matter-talk. Consciousness is always WITh matter yet distinct.

So what do i think? I am kind attracted to that, because unlike materialism which posits ONLY the reality of matter, or the Idealists who posit the only reality is consciousness, the panpsychic theory is more respecting the polarity of 'consciousness' and 'matter'.

When we look at reality, for after all we are in it and part of it so there is no looking at 'it' soley from an outside position so it becomes an object. We ARE it what ever that means. So when we look at it is it not polar-relational? Ie., do we not have darkness and light, and we see that not only can we not HAVE dark without light, we wouldn't be able to KNOW what darkness or light IS without its polar counter part, and this goes for all other polarities like up and down, front and back, inside and outside, black and white, good and bad, life and death, etc. So I am seeing same dynamic polar relationship with matter and consciousness.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: quinn]
    #14283174 - 04/13/11 10:45 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

quinn said:
the only difference between sayin

'i feel like i am in brain state X'
&
'i feel like i am in pain'

is that the brain state is falsifiable.
while pain is not. its a bit strange that humans could have access to some kind of knowledge that cannot be tested, proven or doubted... and they cant even describe exactly what it is :shrug:




it seems strange... but thats what the universe is like, my friend. There is no point taking the grand acheivements of science as if they are the only thing that a human can think of properly. They are merely the only thing people can hope to have a proper agreement on, regarding the objects of our senses (our shared external reality).
But are your thoughts for other people or for your self? Science is for other people, it is a means of determining intersubjective truths and using models to transfer knowledge about our shared objective reality. That doesnt mean it has any bearing on our personal subjective reality. There is, fundamentally, no way to empirically observe experiences. If they didnt exist, we would expect this, and if they did exist, we would also expect this, so it does not add weight to or take weight away from the idea that consciousness exists.

Why would you say that pain is a brain state?
Because certain measured brain/body states correlate to a degree with reports of pain.

But this would be the case even if pain was not a brain state.

All it says is that certain brain states are integral to determining whether or not we will experience pain or not.

It does not mean that pain IS a brain state, because pain cannot be broken into components beyond its sensations, but brain states can be broken into all kinds of components, all the way down to the atoms and quanta.

All physical phenomenon can be broken down into their constituent parts. Any physical object is made of a collection of quanta, and any physical force is composed of a collection of energy vector packets (or whatever you would like to call them). this applies to all things that the scientific realist subscribes to.

But sensations cannot be broken down. You cannot break red into any parts, nor can you break green (although you can mix yellow and blue pigments to create the experience of green - this is not the same thing). You might be able to break a picture down into colours and contours but you cant break those things down further without abstracting conceptual information about the patterns that you see. For example you can conceptualise colours as mixtures of pigments or wavelengths and then break a colour up into different pigments or wavelengths, but you are not breaking the experience down. You can conceptiulise a distinct contour as a line on a plane and then break it down into smaller lines or functions, but then you are not breaking down the experience itself.

Note that this can be misconstrued. For example, you can experience a picture of a tree and break down the tree into trunk and leaves. But the experience itself is not what you are breaking down because the experience is made of contours and colours that are basic. There might also be other aspects of the experience that cannot be broken down, for example some sort of strange tree- experience, but these sorts of experiences (the feeling of thoughts and concepts) are even harder to talk about than basic ones like colours


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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14283440 - 04/13/11 11:41 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

"[...] You cannot break red into any parts, nor can you break green [...]"
The really wicked thing I think you mean is, somebody could experience green as red, or blue as yellow and there would be no way to find it out through exchanging words.


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
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"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #14283488 - 04/13/11 11:51 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Well that is an important point that I made in an earlier post... It was not convincing to quinn. He might think that it is impossible for people to have different experiences of colour if they report the same thing


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OnlineFreedom
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14283644 - 04/13/11 12:27 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)
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Quote:

Noteworthy said:


those fmri studies are severely flawed, methodologically and philosophically.





severely methodo flawed? I've attached a copy of the actual study. What is flawed with it? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute scanned people's brains with fmri while they were making the decision to press a button on th left or right. The brain activity was shown to reliably predict the decesion before the individual noted conscious awareness of the decision.

They also noticed a pattern of brain activity where the motor cortex first becomes a predictor for decisions and then the frontal cortext and then the conscious experience of the decision.

Quote:


Also, your combination of spacetime/matterenergy makes inadequite sense - spacetime are united through mathematical laws that can be rigorously tested, as with matter energy. However consciousness cannot be rigorously tested because it cannot be observed or measured directly.




sorry i didn't think my drug deranged rambling would be taken seriously. Not sure what I really meant when I wrote 'spctergy'.

Quote:

The only way to observe or measure it is to presume a loose, unprecise relationship between consciousness and brain function, and then correlate behaviors to brain functions that are associated to consciousness using more unprecise psychological theories that themselves lack precisely identifiable variables without assumption of the original premise that consciousness IS brain function.





How loose is the relationship? The attached study shows precognitive predictive evidence from multiple brain areas. I think that is a tight fit.

Quote:


All we can measure are physical things, we cant measure consciousness.





Some might say that consciousness is like quanta, which are implied by our experiments but not observed 'directly' (who can 'see' a quark?). But a crucial difference is that quanta are defined by their effect on experimental observation, but consciousness precedes all experimental observation - it exists in an identifiable form [for the introspective philosopher] before any objective study is performed or even concieved of. Furthermore, the quality of a colour like red can never be determined beyond its effects on behavior, and the effect on behavior might be the same in two people even if the experienced quality is different. People may be able to describe different experienced qualities in the same way because descriptions rely on language which relies on associative relationships - and two different experiences can be associated with other concepts and objective phenomenon in the exact same way. This means that there is no way to create a correspondence theory; we lack the ability to link our scientific models of the brain and conscious behavior to the actual phenomenon that is in question.

The crucial point is that consciousness and experience is not the same as behaviors or tendencies to behave (although this is the position of the 20th century behaviorists and indeed any scientist who claims functionalism can be determined through empirical observation).
However, the two are intrinsically linked because we can only ever assume someone else is conscious at all if they behave in a certain way.





My secret motivation is some wild bookworthy speculation about the some implications if consciousness is a property of matter. One obstacle to understanding these implications is our familiarity with memory. It may be difficult for some people to imagine consciousness without memory, without any sense of self or a body or perspectives or habits of analysis and evaluation.

The brain is an extraordinary complex network of weakly electrified tunnels that dynamically shuttle ions around


The number of ions in an epic ion dance through these tunnels is at least a trillion x a trillion. And they move fast. I don't know the speed of ion movement but the action potential is measured in milliseconds. For the action potential Sodium flows in quickly, followed by potassium.

This activity occurs over the entire brain, in intricate patterned networks. A slice of the cerebellum



This looks to me like a rat or mouse cerebellum. The cerebellum has extreme connectivity. purkinje cells grow into a 2d tree:



then ganglion cell axons (in humans ~half the neurons in the brain are cerebellar ganglion cells) traval to the purkinje cell tree branch layer, the axon then bifurcates and moves through sometimes thousands of purkinje cells, making contacts on the purkinje cell tree.




I could go on about the wonderous archetecture of the cerebellum but I can no longer rmember the point of whatever it is I may or may not have been talking about.





Edited by Freedom (04/13/11 01:29 PM)


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Freedom]
    #14283951 - 04/13/11 01:25 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

That study is actually news to me. However I have read it and ideed it is flawed.

Predictive information might exist in the brain because we have made our mind up about something prior to actually putting our foot down and going along with our decision, or alternatively, being able to make our decision.

People's moment of 'deciding' which button to press is determined by what letter is on the screen when they chose to press either left or right. The article says that certain brain activity can predict a decision up to 10 seconds before the decision is made (average time to make decisions after onset is 21.6 seconds.

Therefor it is consistent with this article to say that the participants might be deciding which decision to make (left or right button) and 'thinking it over' for up to 10 seconds before putting their foot down. The point at when they stop 'thinking it over' can be said to be when the decision was made. But 'thinking it over' might not be generally successful in simple arbitrary tasks such as this.


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OfflineNetDiver
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14284025 - 04/13/11 01:36 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Noteworthy said:
But now we are coming to understand self awareness needs no experiential/qualia aspects, it simply requires self-referential content. So new words, such as 'qualia' came out to describe the qualities of experiences. However, over the decades, we have been able to use the word qualia to refer to qualities of the descriptive content of thought, rather than the experiential qualities that precede description. Now, the word qualia has almost changed into a computational model just like all other terms used to describe consciousness.



But this is what I mean when I say there is only the sense of observation, without any participants- that you can't reduce anything any farther than the descriptive content of experiences. If we are to say that things like "what it is like to see blue" are qualia, then find one thing that isn't qualia. There is only the sense of what it's like to have discussions, for instance; the words themselves are inert, dead- they fail to actually describe experiences, they are just ways of relating experiences to each other.

What this boils down to is that there is no relationship between matter and consciousness. They're the same thing. Matter is not distinguishable from our perception of it, and perception is not distinguishable from the matter that is observed (i.e. every single state of perception has a corresponding brain state).

This is what philosophers like Daniel Dennett are getting at when they say that qualia aren't real. It's not that they're denying there's such a thing as experience, but rather, if there's nothing that isn't qualia, then "qualia" fails to be a descriptive term because it doesn't distinguish anything from anything else. It's everything, so it's nothing.


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OfflineNoteworthy
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: NetDiver]
    #14284108 - 04/13/11 01:48 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Except that it isnt matter that is observed... we observe a human reality that has all kinds of qualities like solidity, gas, and sensations, colours, temperature, pressure, etc. From this we have come to infer matter. For the history of the human race people were seeing a reality that was largely based on our evolutionary past and optimal mind-type. Only recently have we created a scientific theory that rigoeously interprets a type of reality (physical) as the basis for our percieved reality.

Also you -can- imagine someone being conscious of something without there being an object. For example, when you press your eyes with the palms of your hands, you may start to see all kinds of strange sensations that don't in any accurate way depict the physical event occuring. They do not refer to anything in the scientifically real world.


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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14284232 - 04/13/11 02:12 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

they refer to th firing of neurons in the visual cortex


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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Noteworthy]
    #14284248 - 04/13/11 02:16 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

How are those shapes/colors distinct from the "scientifically real world"? They exist as a result (or rather, correlated with) very specific physical conditions, namely the rubbing of your eyes.

And yes, we infer matter from what we measure, but that is not incompatible with the idea that there is no matter outside the measurement. That doesn't mean consciousness is "creating" the world though, because similarly, there is no measurement outside of the matter. Trying to find one without the other is like trying to look around yourself in a mirror.


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Edited by NetDiver (04/13/11 05:46 PM)


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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Relationship between matter and consciousness [Re: Kingkuper]
    #14284713 - 04/13/11 03:51 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Freedom said:
Quote:

Noteworthy said:


those fmri studies are severely flawed, methodologically and philosophically.





severely methodo flawed? I've attached a copy of the actual study. What is flawed with it? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute scanned people's brains with fmri while they were making the decision to press a button on th left or right. The brain activity was shown to reliably predict the decesion before the individual noted conscious awareness of the decision.




I allready answered this question previously in this thread, before you asked it (and before you halfway kinda-sorta cited your refrence- guess I'm getting good at identifying the root of pop-sci garbage, lol).  I agree with noteworthy: the study doesn't justify what you say it justifys.  So far as I can see, you have not responded in any way to my criticism of your claims and have proceded onwards without addressing the flaws pointed out.



Quote:

Quote:


Also, your combination of spacetime/matterenergy makes inadequite sense - spacetime are united through mathematical laws that can be rigorously tested, as with matter energy. However consciousness cannot be rigorously tested because it cannot be observed or measured directly.




sorry i didn't think my drug deranged rambling would be taken seriously. Not sure what I really meant when I wrote 'spctergy'.




If you don't want to be taken seriously then don't post in this forum.  To presume someone is a fool or doesn't mean what they say seems an impolite and inefficient practice, so I generally assume people are intending to post what they post.  It would be more considerate if you'd restrain yourself rather than ask others to interpret whatever you were trying to say.



Quote:

Quote:

The only way to observe or measure it is to presume a loose, unprecise relationship between consciousness and brain function, and then correlate behaviors to brain functions that are associated to consciousness using more unprecise psychological theories that themselves lack precisely identifiable variables without assumption of the original premise that consciousness IS brain function.





How loose is the relationship? The attached study shows precognitive predictive evidence from multiple brain areas. I think that is a tight fit.




What do you base this conclusion upon?  What argument for this conclusion and what support for it doe you, specifically, cite?

Quote:


All we can measure are physical things, we cant measure consciousness.





Quote:

Some might say that consciousness is like quanta, which are implied by our experiments but not observed 'directly' (who can 'see' a quark?). But a crucial difference is that quanta are defined by their effect on experimental observation, but consciousness precedes all experimental observation - it exists in an identifiable form [for the introspective philosopher] before any objective study is performed or even concieved of.





Huh?  How is conciousness "like quanta" and what does that mean? 

How is to 'see a quark', as your example goes, an example of direct observation unlike the evidence for the quark that we have that you consider not a direct observation?  This is a claim that is made in various shades of grey all the time in this forum, but I don't think anyone's every justified this distinction.  The whole things seems an arbitrary quality people use as a way to justify their claims or equivocate: the fundamental distinction seems absent. 

How is seeing the deflection resulting from the collision of electrons and protons, suggesting quarks compose the proton, via any given apparatus fundamentally different, "nondirect", then looking at matter, say a rock or sample of liquid nitrogent?  What is indirect about the observation of the quark?


Quote:

Furthermore, the quality of a colour like red can never be determined beyond its effects on behavior, and the effect on behavior might be the same in two people even if the experienced quality is different.




Why can't the quality of red be determined beyond effects on behavior?  We can measure what light will induce a photoelectric effect, what frequency that light is at minimum, and describe that minimum frequency as red light.  What is insufficient about this description?  Its accurate and done in practice?

Quote:

People may be able to describe different experienced qualities in the same way because descriptions rely on language which relies on associative relationships - and two different experiences can be associated with other concepts and objective phenomenon in the exact same way. This means that there is no way to create a correspondence theory; we lack the ability to link our scientific models of the brain and conscious behavior to the actual phenomenon that is in question.




What justification do you have for presuming experiences must be communicated through a reliance on language and therefore claiming they are somehow unable to be theoretically described?  I doubt the premise is true: I get hit with a ball and I wince and cover the spot that was contacted by the ball, and then demonstrate sensitivity to mechanical manipulation of the area struck.  None of this requires language, and all of it provides information on the quality of experience at various times.  It seems your premise is incorrect- how do you justify this neccesity of language and how do you dismiss my counterexample?


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Kingkuper said:
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OrgoneConclusion said:
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LIfe and matter and counsciousness are not complex.




Really? You have solved the riddle? I sit at your feet oh Great Master. :bow2:




ok if your not even gonna attempt to try to understand my view on it then forget it. if your just gonna ridicule and mock me for my beliefs instead of providing evidence that im wrong (which would be great!) then, like i said, forget it.




What does what orgone does have to do with the sufficiency of your proffer or the merits of it?  Where has he ridiculed your statement?  Far as I can see he simply showed a contradiction between your claims and you apparently got upset. 

If your going to have a fit if someone questions your ideas, unjustified and completely worthless conjecture at that, then why are you making them in a philosophical debate forum?  Seems like just a waste of time.  Pardon us for presuming you had some justification for your claims.  Apparently you don't. Thanks for the waste of space :thumbdown:


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