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DividedQuantum
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"Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " 3
#26476792 - 02/09/20 10:59 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved
The sooner we acknowledge it, the sooner we’ll solve the hard problem of consciousness
Bernardo Kastrup 5th February 2020 https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-cannot-have-evolved-auid-1302
The overwhelmingly validated theory of evolution tells us that the functions performed by our organs arose from associated increases in survival fitness. For instance, the bile produced by our liver and the insulin produced by our pancreas help us absorb nutrients and thus survive. Insofar as it is produced by the brain, our phenomenal consciousness—i.e. our ability to subjectively experience the world and ourselves—is no exception: it, too, must give us some survival advantage, otherwise natural selection wouldn’t have fixed it in our genome. In other words, our sentience—to the extent that it is produced by the brain—must perform a beneficial function, otherwise we would be unconscious zombies.
One problem with this is that, under the premises of materialism, phenomenal consciousness cannot—by definition—have a function. According to materialism, all entities are defined and exhaustively characterised in purely quantitative terms. For instance, elementary subatomic particles are exhaustively characterised in terms of e.g. mass, charge and spin values. Similarly, the behaviour of abstract fields is fully defined in terms of quantities, such as frequencies and amplitudes of oscillation. Particles and fields, in and of themselves, have quantitative properties but no intrinsic qualities, such as colour or flavour. Only our perceptions of them—or so the materialist argument goes—are accompanied by qualities somehow generated by our brain.
Materialism posits that the quantities that characterise physical entities are what allow them to be causally efficacious; that is, to produce effects. For instance, it is the charge values of protons and electrons that produce the effect of their mutual attraction. In nuclear fission reactors, it is the mass value of neutrons that produces the effect of splitting atoms. And so on. All chains of cause and effect in nature must be describable purely in terms of quantities. Whatever isn’t a quantity cannot be part of our physical models and therefore—insofar as such models are presumed to be causally-closed—cannot produce effects. According to materialism, all functions rest on quantities.
However, our phenomenal consciousness is eminently qualitative, not quantitative. There is something it feels like to see the colour red, which is not captured by merely noting the frequency of red light. If we were to tell Helen Keller that red is an oscillation of approximately 4.3*1014 cycles per second, she would still not know what it feels like to see red. Analogously, what it feels like to listen to a Vivaldi sonata cannot be conveyed to a person born deaf, even if we show to the person the sonata’s complete power spectrum. Experiences are felt qualities—which philosophers and neuroscientists call ‘qualia’—not fully describable by abstract quantities.
But as discussed above, qualities have no function under materialism, for quantitatively-defined physical models are supposed to be causally-closed; that is, sufficient to explain every natural phenomenon. As such, it must make no difference to the survival fitness of an organism whether the data processing taking place in its brain is accompanied by experience or not: whatever the case, the processing will produce the same effects; the organism will behave in exactly the same way and stand exactly the same chance to survive and reproduce. Qualia are, at best, superfluous extras.
Therefore, under materialist premises, phenomenal consciousness cannot have been favoured by natural selection. Indeed, it shouldn’t exist at all; we should all be unconscious zombies, going about our business in exactly the same way we actually do, but without an accompanying inner life. If evolution is true—which we have every reason to believe is the case—our very sentience contradicts materialism.
This conclusion is often overlooked by materialists, who regularly try to attribute functions to phenomenal consciousness. Here are three illustrative examples:
(1) consciousness enables attention.
(2) consciousness discriminates episodic memory (past) from live perceptions (present) by making them feel different.
(3) consciousness motivates behaviour conducive to survival.
Computer scientists know that none of this requires experience, for we routinely implement all three functions in presumably unconscious silicon computers.
Regarding point 1, under materialism attention is simply a mechanism for focusing an organism’s limited cognitive resources on priority tasks. Computer operating systems do this all the time—using techniques such as interrupts, queuing, task scheduling, etc.—in a purely algorithmic, quantitatively-defined manner.
Regarding point 2, there are countless ways to discriminate data streams without need for accompanying experience. Does your home computer have trouble separating the photos of last year’s holidays from the live feed of your webcam? Data streams from memory and real-time processes can simply be tagged or routed in different ways, without qualia.
Finally regarding point 3, within the logic of materialism motivation is simply a calculation - the output of a quantitative algorithm tasked with maximising the gain while minimising the risk of an organism’s actions. Computers are ‘motivated’ to do whatever it is they do—otherwise they wouldn’t do it—without accompanying qualia.
Just as these three examples illustrate, all conceivable cognitive functions can, under materialist premises, be performed without accompanying experience. Nonetheless, we regularly see scientific publications proposing a function for consciousness. A recent Oxford University Press blog post, for instance, claims that ‘the function of consciousness is to generate possibly counterfactual representations of an event or a situation’, which ‘hint at the origins of consciousness in the course of evolution’.
If one reads it attentively, however, one realises that the article defines what is meant by ‘function of consciousness’ in a rather counterintuitive manner that contradicts the way any casual reader would interpret the words:
‘When we consider functions of consciousness, they are the functions that are enabled by stimuli that enter consciousness or the functions that can be performed only in awake humans or animals. Functions in this sense should not be confused with the question of what kind of effects conscious experiences (or qualia) exert on physical systems.’
In other words, what the author calls the ‘functions of consciousness’ aren’t the cognitive tasks performed by consciousness, but simply those visible to consciousness—i.e. reportable through conscious introspection. Why call these tasks the ‘functions of consciousness’ if they aren’t what consciousness does, but merely what it sees? According to this argument, phenomenal consciousness expressly isn’t the causative agency behind these tasks—for the article excludes the causal efficacy of qualia from the definition—but merely their audience. As such, this theory is somewhat beside the point, as far as the survival value of having qualia or the evolutionary origins of phenomenal consciousness proper.
The impossibility of attributing functional, causative efficacy to qualia constitutes a fundamental internal contradiction in the mainstream materialist worldview. There are two main reasons why this contradiction has been accepted thus far: first, there seems to be a surprising lack of understanding, even amongst materialists, of what materialism actually entails and implies. Second, deceptive word games—such as that discussed above—seem to perpetuate the illusion that we have plausible hypotheses for the ostensive survival function of consciousness.
Phenomenal consciousness cannot have evolved. It can only have been there from the beginning as an intrinsic, irreducible fact of nature. The faster we come to terms with this fact, the faster our understanding of consciousness will progress.
The article is somewhat involved, but the gist is that all biological functions must make sense in the context of evolution -- they must have some sort of survival value, or they would not have evolved. According to standard materialist thought, though, consciousness is epiphenomenal and has no causal efficacy or survival utility. If this is the case, then it could not have evolved. Then the author speculates that if it did not evolve, it must have been there the whole time, and, at least according to materialist philosophical principles, we don't really know what's going on at all. He feels this is an important realization that should be acknowledged in order to have a shot at solving the "hard problem" of consciousness. I thought all this was good food for discussion.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26476918 - 02/09/20 12:41 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Why does consciousness need to be explained?
From 101 Zen Stories
Happy Chinaman
"Anyone walking about Chinatowns in America will observe statues of a stout fellow carrying a linen sack. Chinese merchants call him Happy Chinaman or Laughing Buddha.
This Hotei lived in the T'ang dynasty. He had no desire to call himself a Zen master or to gather many disciples around him. Instead he walked the streets with a big sack into which he would put gifts of candy, fruit, or doughnuts. These he would give to children who gathered around him in play. He established a kindergarten of the streets.
Whenever he met a Zen devotee he would extend his hand and say: "Give me one penny."
Once as he was about to play-work another Zen master happened along and inquired: "What is the significance of Zen?"
Hotei immediately plopped his sack down on the ground in silent answer.
"Then," asked the other, "what is the actualization of Zen?"
At once the Happy Chinaman swung the sack over his shoulder and continued on his way. "
or as Ajhan Sumedho says: "thinking about awareness, is not awareness awareness of thinking is awareness."
Asking (someone or the world) what consciousness is, is like asking: Why am I talking? (And then rambling on, with verbiage, till others simply finally leave.)
---------- It maybe another matter if one is a scientist, and paid, to do actual experiments. But on a personal level, intellectualizing about consciousness, will never have the same effect, or a better effect, than tripping, or meditation. IMO* * (Or, of course, the odd life changing experience such as being saved from a suicide, attempt, etc.)
-----
But don't mind my odd style DQ, I'm sure many others, will find the topic a good one for discussion.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26476933 - 02/09/20 12:53 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I agree with you. I don't think consciousness requires an explanation, or can be analyzed. I just thought it was an interesting topic for discussion, and I do feel the whole concept of epiphenomenalism and causal efficacy is one that should be addressed. As for myself, I consider consciousness a given, and I agree with the researcher that it has been there since the very beginning.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26476958 - 02/09/20 01:21 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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. I imagine on a personal level there is a spectrum of awareness. At one end of the spectrum is self deception, very active defense mechanisms, unresolved emotions, and a personality characterized by stress, and at the other end, more selfless behavior, lucid dreaming, and frequent experiences of peace and so on. Presumably most of us move within a certain range most of the time.
. So the question arises if consciousness is independent of time & is independent of being caused by individuals, why does the experiencing of it vary so much?
. If instead of consciousness, we ask about personal responsibility (aka free will or perhaps even what defines a self) - (pardon how I jump) - the answer is: "The buck stops here!" . "The buck stops here!" is the attitude that defines both responsibility & free will. And it is an attitude that assumes the individual is creative, or has choice, and is in this sense self creative. If this is the case are we co-creative of consciousness?
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26476998 - 02/09/20 01:56 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Interesting points. I think mainly, consciousness creates us, and everything we are and do. Notions of free will are murky, and how it even ties in with decision making (or is exhibited in other actions) is a question. But I think everything flows out of awareness, and I definitely agree that it lies on a spectrum. On one end is pure automatism; on the other is creativity and some sort of volition. I imagine consciousness as a process is independent of time, but on the other hand, as I argued in the other thread, I think it is very hard for humans to dismiss time, enlightened states notwithstanding. In the end, I think everything flows out of and returns to consciousness, and that we are not deterministic bio-robots. (At least not all the time).
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redgreenvines
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26477692 - 02/09/20 09:54 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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the OP quotation is a bother to me, the logical position is unconvincing. of course consciousness is a side effect of our working brains, and of course they evolved and we see evidence of consciousness in animals of all kinds, and the materialist in me considers that a strict brain type organ is most likely required but some invertebrates seem to show consciousness without much brain at all.
learning and conditioned behavior enables adaptation without specialized organs, so it has filled in well for animals that are not ever 100% perfectly adapted to what is always a slightly changing environment.
the essence of consciousness involves experiencing and conditioning behavior, i.e. mind --- it has evolved and continues to evolve, incorporating the world into it, creating museums and libraries, and now the web.
the more new things we ca learn the more it is of value adaptively.
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sudly
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26477825 - 02/10/20 12:09 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
"I claim that reality is exactly what it seems to be, that it has colours, that it has flavours, that it has melody, and that it has qualities and that these flavours, melodies, and qualities are really outside your head, they really exist in the world.
You might say, well why is this heretic right, it is heretic because the mainstream view in our culture today is that it is the brain that generates all of your subjective experiences, all colours, all melodies, all textures, flavours, they all unfold, are generated and exist within your skull, your real skull, supposedly, somewhere beyond this room, enveloping this room from all sides, that is the mainstream materialist, or physicalist view of our culture". - Bernardo Kastrup
If you can unravel this last paragraph from Bernardo it might make it easier to understand where he may be coming from.
Or in other words, do you agree with him?
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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redgreenvines
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26478047 - 02/10/20 07:14 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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it is deficient because it casts the experience as "in the skull" which is not the experience at all...
Usually no part of experiencing includes in the skull perception unless the person is trying to model consciousness which is very rare.
The contents and functioning of the mind in the brain is a conditioned reflection of what is not particularly in the skull - but rather reflections of all the sensible world.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: redgreenvines] 2
#26478192 - 02/10/20 09:27 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: the OP quotation is a bother to me, the logical position is unconvincing. of course consciousness is a side effect of our working brains, and of course they evolved and we see evidence of consciousness in animals of all kinds, and the materialist in me considers that a strict brain type organ is most likely required but some invertebrates seem to show consciousness without much brain at all.
learning and conditioned behavior enables adaptation without specialized organs, so it has filled in well for animals that are not ever 100% perfectly adapted to what is always a slightly changing environment.
the essence of consciousness involves experiencing and conditioning behavior, i.e. mind --- it has evolved and continues to evolve, incorporating the world into it, creating museums and libraries, and now the web.
the more new things we ca learn the more it is of value adaptively.
I don't disagree with you on the weakness of the logic, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. For example, I strongly disagree that consciousness is a side effect of the brain, which is generally assumed, but for which there is zero evidence. My views are quite different, but suffice it to say that I feel that consciousness is much more fundamental, and I wouldn't say I support idealism, but something somewhat similar. I agree fully that learning and conditioning are much more general processes than supposed.
I also agree that there is an evolution of mind, but I think not of consciousness. Consciousness is a fundamental property of existence, and it is what underlies the essence of mind, but mind also is, in a complementary way, a function of the matter, energy and chemistry of the brain and nervous system, and clearly that evolves. Consciousness, mind and brain are subtle shades of the same process, but it's useful to make distinctions, and I think consciousness or awareness is the fundamental property -- not the other way around.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26478206 - 02/10/20 09:31 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said:
Quote:
"I claim that reality is exactly what it seems to be, that it has colours, that it has flavours, that it has melody, and that it has qualities and that these flavours, melodies, and qualities are really outside your head, they really exist in the world.
You might say, well why is this heretic right, it is heretic because the mainstream view in our culture today is that it is the brain that generates all of your subjective experiences, all colours, all melodies, all textures, flavours, they all unfold, are generated and exist within your skull, your real skull, supposedly, somewhere beyond this room, enveloping this room from all sides, that is the mainstream materialist, or physicalist view of our culture". - Bernardo Kastrup
If you can unravel this last paragraph from Bernardo it might make it easier to understand where he may be coming from.
Or in other words, do you agree with him?
I think all he is saying there is that objective reality exists. That reality is not purely a subjective projection of our minds. This of course is somewhat against the mainstream at this point.
In general, I do not agree with the author to a significant degree. I disagree with virtually all of the assumptions he makes, like supposing that epiphenomenalism is a given. But I do agree that consciousness did not evolve, because I feel it is a property of nature that has existed since the beginning.
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redgreenvines
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26478334 - 02/10/20 10:38 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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compare then the consciousness of an eagle with that of a worm (imagination is required), or that of a fish with that of a monkey. Compare any of them to that of a human pilot, surgeon, warrior, housewife etc.
the character of consciousness for each is shaped by the bodies and the sensoria, as well as by the comparative wealth or dearth of social conditioning (i.e. learning/memory)- for example a nurse will have conversations and technical processes and careful human touch activities as well as his or her posture and body feelings circulating as mental forms in his or her consciousness, while a fish will be all about swimming, eating, and escaping predation except when mating or caring for young. Some fish like Groupers and morays are involved with curiosity, and inter species collaboration which is much more complex but not as busy as that of a nurse.
what I am saying is that it is really all about body and its environs, and the kinds of memory and communications/culture: i.e. consciousness is not of one type only, and the complexity of it depends on the hosting body/brain and it's social environment.
how can such dependency pre-exist? certainly the essence of a worm's consciousness pre-exists our own, and you could say that we share the consciousness of worms, but I don't think it makes a lot of sense to say that my personal consciousness pre-exists my body's birth, unless it is some mystical thing like a worm or an arm of the spaghetti monster which oddly could be a good theory.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26478335 - 02/10/20 10:38 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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The whole premise is just an argument from ignorance disguised in fancy language, assumption and faulty premises.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: redgreenvines]
#26478381 - 02/10/20 11:12 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: compare then the consciousness of an eagle with that of a worm (imagination is required), or that of a fish with that of a monkey. Compare any of them to that of a human pilot, surgeon, warrior, housewife etc.
the character of consciousness for each is shaped by the bodies and the sensoria, as well as by the comparative wealth or dearth of social conditioning (i.e. learning/memory)- for example a nurse will have conversations and technical processes and careful human touch activities as well as his or her posture and body feelings circulating as mental forms in his or her consciousness, while a fish will be all about swimming, eating, and escaping predation except when mating or caring for young. Some fish like Groupers and morays are involved with curiosity, and inter species collaboration which is much more complex but not as busy as that of a nurse.
what I am saying is that it is really all about body and its environs, and the kinds of memory and communications/culture: i.e. consciousness is not of one type only, and the complexity of it depends on the hosting body/brain and it's social environment.
Yeah I agree.
Quote:
how can such dependency pre-exist? certainly the essence of a worm's consciousness pre-exists our own, and you could say that we share the consciousness of worms, but I don't think it makes a lot of sense to say that my personal consciousness pre-exists my body's birth, unless it is some mystical thing like a worm or an arm of the spaghetti monster which oddly could be a good theory.
One's personal consciousness need not exist before one is born. One could think of it as consciousness being a field of being inherent in mass and energy, and it can take on infinite forms. So yes, all the characteristics cited above are fundamentally important. I'm not saying exactly that we share the consciousness of worms, but that both humans and worms are conscious, and that consciousness stems from the same source.
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redgreenvines
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26478503 - 02/10/20 12:21 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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we are down to earth (and worms) or spaghetti and space
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Grapefruit
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26478896 - 02/10/20 04:43 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I mean it had to come from some kind of process right? Can you summarise his argument for the mentally challenged and lazy among us?
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: Grapefruit] 1
#26478910 - 02/10/20 04:51 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Grapefruit said: I mean it had to come from some kind of process right? Can you summarise his argument for the mentally challenged and lazy among us?
His premise begins with the notion that in modern theories of biology, psychology and neuroscience, consciousness is seen to be epiphenomenal -- that is, it is a by-product of neural function and does not serve any causative purpose. He continues by saying that, if consciousness has no purpose, and therefore has nothing to do with the organism's survival, then how could it have evolved? Evolution deals with developed characteristics (through changes to the genome) that confer survival advantages in certain environments. If some trait evolves, it must have an evolutionary purpose -- at least, this is the author's conclusion. And if consciousness does not have an evolutionary purpose, it could then not be the result of biological evolution.
If it is not the product of biological evolution, it either magically appeared in organisms at some undefinable point, or it has existed in organisms since the beginning of life. That is the author's argument -- that consciousness, according to the dominant understanding of it, could not have been a product of evolution.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26479349 - 02/10/20 10:01 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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. Consciousness like 'god' is a murky term, that means different thing to different people, and is tangled up with other concepts such as 'self', & 'mind', etc. This is why professional philosophers and scientists take care to define their terms.
. The idea of consciousness preexisting before the (human) evolved brain, implies it is possible without a self. While some may feel they experience awareness of awareness, with out at the same time any particular perceptions. This could only occur during meditation, as waking activity requires, awareness of incoming sense perceptions. . There fore as any possible experiencing of awareness of awareness, without at the same time any particular perceptions, can only occur during meditation, it must be an unverifiable subjective experience, if indeed such a state occurs. . So one aspect of awareness as distinct from specific perceptions, is its subjective nature, which would seem to imply a self.
. As RGV has pointed out mind does serve an evolutionary purpose. All consciousness does is add to the power of the mind. Animals have minds, but not much language, or conceptual power. They solve mazes and in the case of dogs especially are very trainable. . But animals have little in the way of culture compared to humans. And culture or the ability to pass on information to successive generations ( as opposed to strength, powerful teeth and long sharp claws) are what have enabled humans to dominate, all other animals and environments--so consciousness clearly does have evolutionary advantage. . And 'the self' is the focal point of the subjective consciousness, (whether or not 'self' is a provisional simulation or not). Thus in conveying information to others, humans can say things like: "Yesterday, when it was hot, I saw antelope by the water hole, and a big rock we could hide behind, so it makes sense for the two of us, to go hunting there tomorrow, and bring meat back to the tribe; and if it works out we can tell the others, and we may all benefit for generations."
. So it seems there is a good argument for "consciousness" just being an aspect of both mind & self. And that consciousness is not preexisting and disembodied, but is rather just one among many states, that the brain goes "in and out" of such as deep sleep, dreaming, drowsiness, waking, and very alert or aware, all characterized by different brain waves.
. In the case of 'responsibility' we do not say it is 'a state', or wonder if it is 'preexisting and disembodied'---instead we understand that it is a self arising action, a self created intention to act in a certain way independent of circumstance, we understand that it is not an object, & that like breathing the moment it stops it no longer exists. . Consciousness or mindfulness operates the same way. Where does your fist go when you open your hand? It is a verb. A 'fist' is a verb disguised as a noun (object). Language turns running (a verb) into "the race" (a noun). The moment we are distracted mindfulness has disappeared, and we may not remember where we put our car keys, or stumble, etc. Adding "ness" & removing "ing" turns verbs into nouns or objects. Thus "Consciousness" implies an object, where as "experiencing" reveals the processing nature of the ongoing activity. . This again implies 'it' (or 'aware-ing') is not free of perceptions having a locus (or self), not free of time, not free of embodiment, but is instead a conditioned phenomenon, dependent on causes & conditions.
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pineninja
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog] 1
#26479373 - 02/10/20 10:36 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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It's both always been and never was. It's indubitubly seen just because. Not before or after an evolutionaries tear. A deliberately paradoxical sensoural scare.
No point could be teased from when which I began. This substance leaves no room from hence too trancend. Consciousness is all, both always been and never was. Constructs of separation through poetry, just because.
-------------------- Just a fool on the hill.
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sudly
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26479385 - 02/10/20 10:58 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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You said that you feel consciousness or awareness is a property of nature that has existed since the beginning.
To me conscious means to be aware of environs.
And consciousness a developed capability in interpersonal relations, and a capability in displaying intelligent disobedience.
While humans are arguably the most advanced in such active learning techniques, chimps and other animals like dolphins, dogs, birds and seals among others are still rather capable.
Perhaps we can add this to the discussion, that being conscious is inherent to life.
Quote:
I'm not saying exactly that we share the consciousness of worms, but that both humans and worms are conscious, and that consciousness stems from the same source.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (02/10/20 11:12 PM)
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sudly
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26479397 - 02/10/20 11:05 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: I think all he is saying there is that objective reality exists. That reality is not purely a subjective projection of our minds. This of course is somewhat against the mainstream at this point.
This sounds awfully like a straw man, vaguely asserting a mainstream, and then conveniently knocking it down.
I mean this guy was talking about skulls enveloping rooms..
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26479400 - 02/10/20 11:08 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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It seems that he's using "consciousness" to mean "subjective experience", or "qualia". That is, the feeling of being sentient and perceiving the outside world by interpreting the input from your own senses.
To my knowledge neither biology nor neuroscience have anything to say regarding subjective experience, because "X has qualia" is an unfalsifiable statement. Qualia is a hypothetical concept in philosophy and has never been measured, nor are there any proposed methods to do so. There's no test you can perform on a creature to know if it has qualia or not. He gives the example of computer programs that behave as if sentient but have no qualia. Well, the simple question is how can we know that, say, Asimo has no qualia? He says that its brain is just "unconscious silicon", but if I were to look at Bernardo Kastrup's brain I'd just see unconscious carbon goo.
So, saying "consciousness cannot have evolved" is as useful a statement as "Russell's teapot cannot have accreted from the solar nebula". Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Let's start by showing that the thing exists, yeah?
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BrendanFlock
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That's true the primary function of the universe is auto drive!
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laughingdog
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Quote:
InsultingLizard said: It seems that he's using "consciousness" to mean "subjective experience", or "qualia". That is, the feeling of being sentient and perceiving the outside world by interpreting the input from your own senses.
To my knowledge neither biology nor neuroscience have anything to say regarding subjective experience, because "X has qualia" is an unfalsifiable statement. Qualia is a hypothetical concept in philosophy and has never been measured, nor are there any proposed methods to do so. ....
So, saying "consciousness cannot have evolved" is as useful a statement as "Russell's teapot cannot have accreted from the solar nebula". Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Let's start by showing that the thing exists, yeah?
. His article ends with "Phenomenal consciousness cannot have evolved. It can only have been there from the beginning as an intrinsic, irreducible fact of nature. The faster we come to terms with this fact, the faster our understanding of consciousness will progress."
. So Bernardo Kastrup wants to prove that "consciousness" has no source, is timeless & eternal, is immaterial, yet manifests stuff, and that since the material can only manifest the material or physical, consciousness cannot be created by the physical. This must also mean 'the self', (being non physical) has no relation to the physical body, as it cannot be created by the physical world. . All the while Bernardo fails to realize that the immaterial is not an object & cannot be referred to with a noun and that "consciousness", is a noun, which seems to say little for his level of so called "consciousness". Meanwhile he has nothing to say about why the self dies if it & "consciousness" are independent of the body and brain.
. Seems he also fails to realize that in his attempt to disqualify what he calls 'materialism', that he ends up defining 'consciousness' as a feeling: "According to materialism, all functions rest on quantities. Our phenomenal consciousness is eminently qualitative, not quantitative. .. However, our phenomenal consciousness is eminently qualitative, not quantitative. There is something it feels like to see the colour red, which is not captured by merely noting the frequency of red light. ..."
. And of course feelings are embodied, and any feeling is no more special than another. Whether fear, or anger, or happiness or sorrow appear for a while, they all may seem/feel important for a little while only to vanish and be replaced by another shortly thereafter. And the phenomenon of false awakening within a dream, proves the point, that feelings are both fleeting and unreliable sources of accurate data. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=false+awakening&t=h_&ia=web When a false awakening happens a person realizes they were dreaming, and "wakes up" and more events then take place only for the dreamer, to discover a bit later, once again that they are dreaming... https://howtolucid.com/false-awakening-loops/
. So very clearly feelings cannot be relied upon to indicate full consciousness-- the exact opposite of what Bernardo claims.
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sudly
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26479565 - 02/11/20 05:04 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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His article says good consciousness cannot have evolved?
Can you explain that to me.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (02/11/20 05:13 AM)
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sudly
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved Alone " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26479567 - 02/11/20 05:08 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well, I don't think good consciousness could have evolved alone.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (02/11/20 05:57 AM)
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly] 1
#26479852 - 02/11/20 09:44 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said: Perhaps we can add this to the discussion, that being conscious is inherent to life.
Yes, I think that is reasonable and correct. Incidentally, I think that is one of the positions of the author of the article.
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DividedQuantum
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Quote:
InsultingLizard said: So, saying "consciousness cannot have evolved" is as useful a statement as "Russell's teapot cannot have accreted from the solar nebula". Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Let's start by showing that the thing exists, yeah?
Given what we know about the people and animals around us, to suppose that consciousness might not exist is less reasonable than assuming it does. So we can make consciousness a given. There is no use arguing about, or proving, whether consciousness exists. Just as in mathematics we have to assume axioms that cannot be proven.
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26479975 - 02/11/20 11:05 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said:
Quote:
InsultingLizard said: So, saying "consciousness cannot have evolved" is as useful a statement as "Russell's teapot cannot have accreted from the solar nebula". Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Let's start by showing that the thing exists, yeah?
Given what we know about the people and animals around us, to suppose that consciousness might not exist is less reasonable than assuming it does. So we can make consciousness a given. There is no use arguing about, or proving, whether consciousness exists. Just as in mathematics we have to assume axioms that cannot be proven.
I don't agree. If we were talking about sentience (the capacity of an organism to respond to stimuli in its environment) then that would be a different matter, but "consciousness" in this sense is basically interchangeable with "soul". To me at least, that humans have souls and AIs don't (or can't) is not obvious.
As for axioms, the point of axioms is that they're tools that help you reason soundly. Science already has axioms such as "the universe is not consciously trying to fool experimenters". If you don't make that assumption you can't do science, because you can't trust any of your observations. "Some living beings and only living beings have consciousness" would be an inappropriate axiom because it doesn't help you discover anything new. Also, when you make something an axiom you're implicitly accepting that you're no longer going to bother checking if it's true. That's a very dangerous game to play.
Edited by InsultingLizard (02/11/20 11:08 AM)
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DividedQuantum
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Well my only point is that if we do not assume that other people, and possibly animals, are indeed conscious, we're just wallowing in pointless philosophical sophistry. For me to say that you are very probably conscious is not an unacceptable axiom.
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26480070 - 02/11/20 12:11 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I agree that at least other humans and many animals have subjective experiences. However, that's merely an intuition: "things that are like me tend to have properties similar to me, even when those properties aren't immediately obvious". There is currently no way to test this intuition. One of the key points the author makes is that science claims consciousness is epiphenomenal, but science has nothing to say about untestable hypotheses, so the entire premise falls apart. If we don't know which things have subjective experience and to what degree then there's no way to tell whether it's an evolutionary advantage or not, so there's no way to know whether it evolved or not.
Quote:
we're just wallowing in pointless philosophical sophistry
The hard problem of consciousness is pointless philosophical sophistry itself. The philosopher invents the problem ("why are living beings conscious while non-living beings aren't?") and then wastes millennia looking for a solution.
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laughingdog
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Quote:
InsultingLizard said:
Quote:
DividedQuantum said:
Quote:
InsultingLizard said: So, saying "consciousness cannot have evolved" is as useful a statement as "Russell's teapot cannot have accreted from the solar nebula". Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Let's start by showing that the thing exists, yeah?
Given what we know about the people and animals around us, to suppose that consciousness might not exist is less reasonable than assuming it does. So we can make consciousness a given. There is no use arguing about, or proving, whether consciousness exists. Just as in mathematics we have to assume axioms that cannot be proven.
I don't agree. If we were talking about sentience (the capacity of an organism to respond to stimuli in its environment) then that would be a different matter, but "consciousness" in this sense is basically interchangeable with "soul". To me at least, that humans have souls and AIs don't (or can't) is not obvious.
As for axioms, the point of axioms is that they're tools that help you reason soundly. Science already has axioms such as "the universe is not consciously trying to fool experimenters". If you don't make that assumption you can't do science, because you can't trust any of your observations. "Some living beings and only living beings have consciousness" would be an inappropriate axiom because it doesn't help you discover anything new. Also, when you make something an axiom you're implicitly accepting that you're no longer going to bother checking if it's true. That's a very dangerous game to play.
. Well I do agree. Firstly is consciousness a noun/ object or a process/verb? This gets ignored. If its a verb what is doing the action? Does it require a 'self' to perform the action? (If so we not only have consciousness without a cause, but also some or many disincarnate 'selves' or 'self'). . The alternatives are that it is a noun, an abstraction (like numbers), or like 'god' is allowed to totally escape having a definition. If it doesn't have a definition anyone can say whatever they want about it. If it is an object then other problems arise. . Seems to me some folks are so desperate to have answers that they make stuff up. And others are so desperate to get credit for discovering something new, that they try to defy accepted "wisdom" by thinking they have discovered something new. This is seen all the time when it comes to discovering a pattern in the prime numbers. . Indeed it seems most folks are a bit like this. The exceptions stand out:Lao Tzu, Socrates, Zen teachers*, Buddha**, and Rene Magritte. They were all comfortable with mystery and not knowing. . But the world is in love with guys like Jordan Peterson that pretend to know everything. In fact this is shown by the story of why Socrates was put to death by the Athenian Greeks, who supposedly were a culture based on reason, & on which much of our own culture is supposed to be based.
. * https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Zen%2C+paradox+contradiction&t=h_&ia=web
. ** https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Buddha+questions%2C+not+answered&t=h_&ia=web
Edited by laughingdog (02/11/20 12:19 PM)
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DividedQuantum
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Well you raise an interesting point -- and also a crucial one. The dominant assumption of biology, psychology, neuroscience and philosophy is that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, as you point out, but if they cannot even make a measurement, I agree that there is no basis for calling it an epiphenomenon, or anything at all. So I now see your objection to the article. I definitely agree it makes a lot of unacceptable assumptions.
And I further agree with you about the hard problem. It's backwards if it's anything, and it may not even be relevant enough to call backwards.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26480100 - 02/11/20 12:36 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: Well you raise an interesting point -- and also a crucial one. The dominant assumption of biology, psychology, neuroscience and philosophy is that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, as you point out, but if they cannot even make a measurement, I agree that there is no basis for calling it an epiphenomenon,
. Exactly both "Phenomenon" and the word "epiphenomenon" explain nothing, IMO.
"Phenomenon definition is - an observable fact or event. How to use phenomenon in a sentence. Can phenomena be used as a singular?" *
"An epiphenomenon (plural: epiphenomena) is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon. The word has two senses: one that connotes known causation and one that connotes absence of causation or reservation of judgment about it." **
Calling "Consciousness" a "fact" by using a fancy word contributes nothing. and Calling "Consciousness" an event implies its over So Likewise calling "Consciousness" a secondary fact or event is also useless.
* https://duckduckgo.com/?q=phenomenon+definition&t=h_&ia=definition
**Epiphenomenon - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenon
------------ So the question remains what is consciousness?
. Firstly is consciousness a noun/ object or a process/verb? This gets ignored. If its a verb what is doing the action? Does it require a 'self' to perform the action? (If so we not only have consciousness without a cause, but also some or many disincarnate 'selves' or 'self'). . The alternatives are that it is a noun, an abstraction (like numbers), or like 'god' is allowed to totally escape having a definition. If it doesn't have a definition anyone can say whatever they want about it. If it is an object then other problems arise. . Seems to me some folks are so desperate to have answers that they make stuff up. And others are so desperate to get credit for discovering something new, that they try to defy accepted "wisdom" by thinking they have discovered something new. This is seen all the time when it comes to discovering a pattern in the prime numbers. . Indeed it seems most folks are a bit like this. The exceptions stand out:Lao Tzu, Socrates, Zen teachers*, Buddha**, and Rene Magritte. They were all comfortable with mystery and not knowing. . But the world is in love with guys like Jordan Peterson that pretend to know everything. In fact this is shown by the story of why Socrates was put to death by the Athenian Greeks, who supposedly were a culture based on reason, & on which much of our own culture is supposed to be based.
. * https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Zen%2C+paradox+contradiction&t=h_&ia=web
. ** https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Buddha+questions%2C+not+answered&t=h_&ia=web
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480109 - 02/11/20 12:40 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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And the other possibility ""An epiphenomenon (plural: epiphenomena) is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon. The word has two senses: one that connotes known causation and one that connotes absence of causation or reservation of judgment about it." **
If "epiphenomenon" is taken to mean 'absence of causation', then of course calling consciousness an "epiphenomenon", just like the term 'god' takes one 'beyond' both science and reason, and makes introducing rational argument or discourse useless.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480117 - 02/11/20 12:49 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Indeed.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
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Quote:
InsultingLizard said: ..... If we don't know which things have subjective experience and to what degree then there's no way to tell whether it's an evolutionary advantage or not, so there's no way to know whether it evolved or not.....
. If we do assume 'consciousness' occurs (not exists) in minds as an increased ability, (as we go 'up' the 'evolutionary ladder') to make predictions (imagine future outcomes), & to model a boundary to a body and its actions-within its simulation of reality or the external environment, & an an increased ability to remember, then so called 'consciousness' very clearly DOES have evolutionary advantage. . This contradicts Bernardo Kastrup both as regards 'consciousness', both in regards to evolution and its being preexisting. As well as the notion that is mysterious and somehow absolute. And being absolute is actually the hidden agenda IMO.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480129 - 02/11/20 12:59 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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correction "As well as the notion that is mysterious and somehow absolute. And being absolute is actually the hidden agenda IMO." should be "As well as the notion that "it" is mysterious and somehow absolute. And being absolute is actually the hidden agenda IMO."
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480167 - 02/11/20 01:22 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Well I do agree. Firstly is consciousness a noun/ object or a process/verb? This gets ignored. If its a verb what is doing the action?
"Consciousness" is a noun that refers to a process. This is analogous to other nouns such as "movement" and "computation". Obviously consciousness is a function performed by brains, or at least nervous systems.
Quote:
Does it require a 'self' to perform the action? (If so we not only have consciousness without a cause, but also some or many disincarnate 'selves' or 'self').
I don't follow. What do you mean by "self"? It would seem that consciousness starts spontaneously in brains as they mature. This is certainly the case for other cognitive functions such as theory of mind. So I don't see what you mean by having no cause.
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If we do assume 'consciousness' occurs (not exists) in minds as an increased ability, (as we go 'up' the 'evolutionary ladder') to make predictions (imagine future outcomes), & to model a boundary to a body and its actions-within its simulation of reality or the external environment
You're talking about abstract thought, though, not consciousness (qualia). All you need to anticipate future events is having an accurate model of reality and good data to feed to that model and make predictions. This doesn't require subjective experience, computers can be programmed to do this easily enough.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480175 - 02/11/20 01:28 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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. We see the same thing with so called "Intelligent design". Bernardo has simply substituted the term "consciousness" for the term "God" in order to create an absolute. Why? - because mindfulness, which realizes there is a spectrum of how aware we are, and that it takes work, to move up the scale, is something he and his like wish to avoid. If is absolute, and independent of himself, then of course he is excused, from making any effort or continual efforts.
"Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
Intelligent design - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_designhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480208 - 02/11/20 01:45 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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. What do I mean by self? This phrase above covers it: "& to model a boundary to a body and its actions-within its simulation of reality or the external environment," (within the brain). . Self recognition is also taken to be an aspect. Thus at times the mirror test has been used to test this (debated now). . And of course the mind must separately track its 'own' actions.
---
You say "Consciousness" is a noun that refers to a process. This is analogous to other nouns such as "movement" and "computation". Obviously consciousness is a function performed by brains, or at least nervous systems. " You contradict Bernardo here--ok. And attempt to make a better definition. I'm not convinced by your briefly worded suggestion. I see no noun or object at all. Does an ant or termite colony have a mind or self or "Consciousness"? Yet the colony functions as if it did. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=termite+mounds+Africa&t=hz&iax=images&ia=images
----------
You say : "You're talking about abstract thought, though, not consciousness (qualia). "
I "talked" previously above, about false awakenings in an attempt to shed some light on this notion.
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26480239 - 02/11/20 01:57 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
You say "Consciousness" is a noun that refers to a process. This is analogous to other nouns such as "movement" and "computation". Obviously consciousness is a function performed by brains, or at least nervous systems. " You contradict Bernardo here--ok. And attempt to make a better definition. I'm not convinced by your briefly worded suggestion. I see no noun or object at all. Does an ant or termite colony have a mind or self or "Consciousness"? Yet the colony functions as if it did. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=termite+mounds+Africa&t=hz&iax=images&ia=images
I mean, "consciousness" is a noun. I don't see how this can be disputed by any English speaker. You can say "I have consciousness", but you can't say "I am consciousnessing".
As for the consciousness of insect colonies, I don't know. I don't find the idea unacceptable in principle. Whether a brain is a large collection of neurons, of ants, or of transistors is of little importance in my opinion. But I said above, until we can come up with a way to test for consciousness I think it's a pointless exercise.
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r00tcmplx
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26480799 - 02/11/20 06:20 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Bernardo Kastrup doesn't seem to have a fundamental grasp of Computer Science nor Philosophy which he maintains a PhD. His commentary speaks more to the the absolute low state of academia and strict adherents to it than it does an insightful write-up. Consciousness could have done whatever it decided. Having no workable definition of even the slightest understanding of what it is as clearly demonstrated by Bernardo makes his world salad of an article pointless. He doesn't understand in the least what consciousness is but asserts wild and convoluted speculations on what it isn't and couldn't have done? Am I reading this right? I almost got a headache reading his world salad by the way. He posted pages and pages of nonsensical ramblings all to say : I have no clue what consciousness is or how computers function but here is my winded, overly verbose, and obtuse summary of what we already know about both....
I mean ok.
Quote:
DividedQuantum said: I think all he is saying there is that objective reality exists. That reality is not purely a subjective projection of our minds. This of course is somewhat against the mainstream at this point.
This is actually common sense currently and consensus and is clearly stated by anyone with a functional brain. What special fantasy does Bernardo Kastrup live in where he feels this is some profound insight?
The article you posted was one of the hardest reads I've gone through this year. I had to look the guy up because he sounded completed out of it...
Legit :
Quote:
Bernardo Kastrup's work has been leading the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). Bernardo has worked as a scientist in some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the "Casimir Effect" of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has authored many academic papers and books on philosophy and science, being a regular contributor to Scientific American and the Institute of Art and Ideas. His most recent book is The Idea of the World: A multi-disciplinary argument for the mental nature of reality. For more information, freely downloadable papers, videos, etc., please visit www.bernardokastrup.com.
> metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental What? ....
I feel like if I read any more of his stuff my brain will become more scrambled than a bowl of spaghetti. I have my qualms with those in the AI industry and I took issue with : Yoshua bengio recently calling philosophers who have weighed in on AI as being people who waste time playing around in wasteful mental gymnastics but after parsing this article.. Jesus christ, he appears to be correct at least in the case of Bernado Kastrup... What's shocking is this guy has a PhD in Computer science and still mistakes the forest for the trees.
How can people be soo blind to this problem and so married to mental frameworks that will get them nowhere? Materialism? Isn't the end all be all.. it frames a portion of the problem. Stop writing 400 page books arguing about it and move on to other schools of thoughts that are better at framing/discussing the problem.
I'll never understand this this obsession with trying to cram every single thing under the sun under one -ism/-ist? It's borderline blind religion. Is this how people keep up long careers and write endless pages of books in philosophy?

Good God.
Edited by r00tcmplx (02/11/20 06:35 PM)
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r00tcmplx
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: redgreenvines]
#26480807 - 02/11/20 06:28 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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redgreenvines said: it is deficient because it casts the experience as "in the skull" which is not the experience at all...
Usually no part of experiencing includes in the skull perception unless the person is trying to model consciousness which is very rare.
The contents and functioning of the mind in the brain is a conditioned reflection of what is not particularly in the skull - but rather reflections of all the sensible world.
Bernado's article linked in OP was probably one of the worst recent dissections of this topic I have ever read. Deficient is an understatement. I feel like Bernado completely missed the mark and muddled a swath of far more clearer framings of the topic all to be controversial and promote himself.
The whole article could have been summarized in a single paragraph : My name is Bernado and I have no clue what consciousness is. There is objective reality and we make subjective internalization of it. I have no clue how this is done but its a hard thing to approach. Even though I have a PhD in computer engineering and one in Philosophy, I have no clue how to marry the two into deeper understanding and the following is is my airing of my personal frustrations with this lacking...
I especially take issue with what I feel was a clear attempt by Bernardo to muddy the waters and obscure far more concise and established understanding. Reminds me of a recent debate I watched between an "AI specialist" and a more ontological philosopher AI specialist. The philosopher got absolutely destroyed not to say that the AI specialist wasn't full of it and off the mark as well.
And I just found that Bernado writes for Scientific American and has written countless and similar articles for them? Dam, things have fallen off in terms of quality.
Edited by r00tcmplx (02/11/20 06:36 PM)
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redgreenvines
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: r00tcmplx]
#26480968 - 02/11/20 07:56 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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my favorite inference about consciousness derives from the loss of consciousness.
I know what that is in my life, and I take consciousness to be everything else. (and yes, Veronica, it does have the character of a stream.)
--------------------
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: redgreenvines]
#26481050 - 02/11/20 08:46 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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That's not what's meant in this context, though. What you're referring to is an interruption of perception; when your mind temporarily disconnects from the outside world. The article is using "consciousness" to refer to the subjective experience of perception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
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r00tcmplx
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Quote:
InsultingLizard said: That's not what's meant in this context, though. What you're referring to is an interruption of perception; when your mind temporarily disconnects from the outside world. The article is using "consciousness" to refer to the subjective experience of perception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
Yea and Bernando the author of the article did a horrible job of muddying waters on a concept that is actually quite clear and is on workable terms. Literally reads as a person's personal frustration with not being able to move the ball forward thus writing a raging scorched earth article filled with babbling. I've read framings from other philosophers that are ten times better even those with critiques of established thinking.
Meanwhile not only does this guy have a PhD in Philosophy but one in Comp Sci. too and he's lost in both arenas?
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SexySmurff
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: r00tcmplx] 1
#26481193 - 02/11/20 10:54 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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step outside of time flatlanders!
-------------------- Exalted is He from what they utter. Exalted is He from what they imagine. Exalted is He that exists without a place. Exalted is He that was there forever without a time or a beginning. Exalted is He that will be there forever without a time or an end. Exalted is He that will forever be praised. That is your God.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26481356 - 02/12/20 02:35 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Particles and fields, in and of themselves, have quantitative properties but no intrinsic qualities, such as colour or flavour. Only our perceptions of them—or so the materialist argument goes—are accompanied by qualities somehow generated by our brain.
Gold is valuable for the properties intrinsic to gold.
The quality isn't generated by the brain, it is picked up on by the brain, it is noticed and studied and recorded and reveled.
Like what good use can this piece of gold be put to?
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However, our phenomenal consciousness is eminently qualitative, not quantitative. There is something it feels like to see the colour red, which is not captured by merely noting the frequency of red light. If we were to tell Helen Keller that red is an oscillation of approximately 4.3*1014 cycles per second, she would still not know what it feels like to see red. Analogously, what it feels like to listen to a Vivaldi sonata cannot be conveyed to a person born deaf, even if we show to the person the sonata’s complete power spectrum. Experiences are felt qualities—which philosophers and neuroscientists call ‘qualia’—not fully describable by abstract quantities.
Our good consciousness is clearly qualitative, and rationally quantitative.
That something it is to see the colour of red is a specific wavelength of light that certain cones and rods in our eyes can detect. This is elementary, that no matter what you do Helen Keller was blind and would not be able to see red. As with a deaf person, they cannot hear.
Thanks to modern science there are colour blind correcting glasses and cochlear implants available.
Experiences are felt, but they are conveyed within environs.
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But as discussed above, qualities have no function under materialism, for quantitatively-defined physical models are supposed to be causally-closed; that is, sufficient to explain every natural phenomenon. As such, it must make no difference to the survival fitness of an organism whether the data processing taking place in its brain is accompanied by experience or not: whatever the case, the processing will produce the same effects; the organism will behave in exactly the same way and stand exactly the same chance to survive and reproduce. Qualia are, at best, superfluous extras.
Qualia, sentience and consciousness led to improved fitness via tool use.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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laughingdog
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Quote:
InsultingLizard said:
I mean, "consciousness" is a noun. I don't see how this can be disputed by any English speaker. You can say "I have consciousness", but you can't say "I am consciousnessing".
As for the consciousness of insect colonies, I don't know. I don't find the idea unacceptable in principle. Whether a brain is a large collection of neurons, of ants, or of transistors is of little importance in my opinion. But I said above, until we can come up with a way to test for consciousness I think it's a pointless exercise.
. Exactly a verb (and one can say both experience & experiencing which are synonyms IMO) ) that has been turned into a noun. Consciousness in reality cannot be an object as objects are precisely that which is not conscious, as opposed to life and 'mind'. . This process is called nominalization or reification. I give the example : Where does your fist go, when you open your hand? Nominalization or reification is a trick of language that misleads us. 'Fist' should actually be a verb as it is a process, as it lasts only as long as the muscles (of the hand & forearm are actively contracting). . The consequence is that we are told consciousNESS is an uncaused, eternal object, which is also disembodied, & independent, which i find absurd. . Even being alert without thinking, is an activity, as it does not last, and it only occurs while we are experiencING and feeling its active nature. . BK wants (like many others) to turn "consciousness" into an absolute, (where as I see it as interdependent with both 'self' (also not absolute) & 'mind') & put it on a pedestal, but I have been over many of these points previously, plus other objections to the article, and don't wish to repeat them all here now, when it is not necessary, to retype what is readily available, if anyone, were interested.
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26481577 - 02/12/20 08:22 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Exactly a verb (and one can say both experience & experiencing which are synonyms IMO) ) that has been turned into a noun.
"Consciousness" is the adjective "conscious" with the suffix "-ness", which turns it into a noun.
Quote:
Consciousness in reality cannot be an object as objects are precisely that which is not conscious, as opposed to life and 'mind'.
Whether consciousness is an object or a process and whether "consciousness" is a verb or a noun are independent facts. Life is a process, but "life" is a noun.
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redgreenvines
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seems like this is a poorly defined word, one with little consensus, or rather a word that different camps of theorists and believers use to mean different things.
for me it is the experience of life as I said above:Quote:
my favorite inference about consciousness derives from the loss of consciousness.
I know what that is in my life, and I take consciousness to be everything else.
the twist is that consciousness is an innate renonant and reflective ability of our brains, which can be inhibited by sleep or coma, and enhanced (i.e. made more resonant) by emotions, dreams and drugs.
this way of looking at it should not invite confusion.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: redgreenvines]
#26481985 - 02/12/20 01:17 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
my favorite inference about consciousness derives from the loss of consciousness.
I know what that is in my life, and I take consciousness to be everything else.
The loss of consciousness for me wasn't like sleep, because when you wake up from a night of sleep you first awake, and are aware of yourself within your room. It's being asleep and waking up within seconds.
From my coma experience the 'going to sleep' part is only fractionally remembered with intermittent memories, the waking up was a slow hazy phasing in over several hours and days.
The sleeping part, was like a flat lining heart, I wasn't dreaming or anything, it was a short moment of calm in my experience. Waking up was less so but I recovered well.
So if I know what inference can be derived from the loss of consciousness, I can take consciousness to be everything else, because my coma was the most absolute nothing I've ever felt, like a short calm nap.
But still so, I was not with any consciousness yet I was alive and performing a vast array of metabolic processes.
Can anyone else explain their view of what was left over when I was in a coma? If I was without consciousness.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (02/12/20 11:02 PM)
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26482617 - 02/12/20 07:45 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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sudly this thread started with BKs articles which attempted to prove, theoretical aspects in regards to consciousness, most of us felt he bit off more than he could chew.
If you want to enjoy exploring the experimental and experiential research aspects, Oliver Sacks & Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran's books are very popular.
And the rubber hand illusion on you tube at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rubber+hand+illusion%2C+science and the body swap illusion at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=body+swap+illusion+
returning to the theoretical both Donald Hoffman https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=interface+theory+consciousness
and Stanislas Dehaene https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Stanislas+Dehaene%2C+
are more on the ball than BK
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BrendanFlock
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26482799 - 02/12/20 09:14 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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The stream is a concsious idea within consciousness.. observation.
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InsultingLizard
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26482906 - 02/12/20 10:43 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said: The loss of consciousness for me wasn't like sleep, because when you wake up from a night of sleep you first awake, and are aware of yourself within your room. It's being asleep and waking up within seconds.
From my coma experience the 'going to sleep' part is only fractionally remembered with intermittent memories, the waking up was a slow hazy phasing in over several hours and days.
Waking up isn't an on-off thing for everyone. Some people experience sleep paralysis, where they are fully conscious, but unable to move. And then there's sleepwalkers, who are asleep but behave is they were awake and may perform complex activities.
Quote:
sudly said: Can anyone else explain their view of what was left over when I was in a coma? If I was without consciousness.
While I do believe that your consciousness was completely shut off, the experience as you describe it is indistinguishable from simple amnesia. I had a concussion a few years ago and during the following 30-60 minutes in the car ride home I had several chunks were nothing was recorded. The only reason I know time was passing is because during the periods where I do have memory I recognized where I was along the route. I don't think I lost consciousness during those times, but honestly I have no way to know.
What was the cause of your coma, if you don't mind?
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Getting up out of bed may be different for people, but when you wake up in the morning, I at least recognise that I'm awake. I try going back to sleep but I know that I've woken up.
It was a medical complication.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26486271 - 02/14/20 10:53 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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The only journal piece that was referenced in this article states in its abstract that,
Quote:
According to this view, consciousness emerged in evolution when organisms gained the ability to perform internal simulations using internal models,
And yet the title of the article is that consciousness cannot have evolved?!
Quote:
What is the biological advantage of having consciousness? Functions of consciousness have been elusive due to the subjective nature of consciousness and ample empirical evidence showing the presence of many nonconscious cognitive performances in the human brain. Drawing upon empirical literature, here, we propose that a core function of consciousness be the ability to internally generate representations of events possibly detached from the current sensory input. Such representations are constructed by generative models learned through sensory-motor interactions with the environment.
We argue that the ability to generate information underlies a variety of cognitive functions associated with consciousness such as intention, imagination, planning, short-term memory, attention, curiosity, and creativity, all of which contribute to non-reflexive behavior. According to this view, consciousness emerged in evolution when organisms gained the ability to perform internal simulations using internal models, which endowed them with flexible intelligent behavior. To illustrate the notion of information generation, we take variational autoencoders (VAEs) as an analogy and show that information generation corresponds the decoding (or decompression) part of VAEs.
In biological brains, we propose that information generation corresponds to top-down predictions in the predictive coding framework. This is compatible with empirical observations that recurrent feedback activations are linked with consciousness whereas feedforward processing alone seems to occur without evoking conscious experience. Taken together, the information generation hypothesis captures many aspects of existing ideas about potential functions of consciousness and provides new perspectives on the functional roles of consciousness.
Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2019, Issue 1, 2019, niz016, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niz016 Published: 29 November 2019
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26486578 - 02/15/20 06:15 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said: The only journal piece that was referenced in this article states in its abstract that,
Quote:
According to this view, consciousness emerged in evolution when organisms gained the ability to perform internal simulations using internal models,
...
we are leaning into complexity that is not well defined in this statement, however, the ability to perform internal simulations using internal models, can be viewed as the ability to perform internal simulations using associative memory, and this ability can be defined and tested without vagueness or abstraction.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26487567 - 02/15/20 07:54 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I thinkQuote:
sudly said: ....We argue that the ability to generate information underlies a variety of cognitive functions associated with consciousness such as intention, imagination, planning, short-term memory, attention, curiosity, and creativity, all of which contribute to non-reflexive behavior. .... Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2019, Issue 1, 2019, niz016, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niz016 Published: 29 November 2019
This definition of consciousness, admits, that (just like 'mind' & 'self') that 'it' is not unitary or stable or permanent. It seems to be defined as an emergent property, of various different processes that so to speak/metaphorically, through interacting reach a critical mass or phase transition.
I think how & when self recognition occurs is a missing piece here. (As per the mirror test, etc.)
But regardless, once it is deconstructed, it becomes apparent that it is not a mysterious, incomprehensible, absolute, monolith. And that to speak of it in such a fashion may be quite misleading.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26487810 - 02/16/20 01:36 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
a mysterious, incomprehensible, absolute, monolith.
You say?
That's the first I've heard of this
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Posts: 10,798
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26489277 - 02/17/20 12:42 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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The study used modelling associated with deep learning and top-down predictions to hypothesise;
Quote:
Highlights
- Drawing upon empirical research into consciousness, we propose a hypothesis that a function of consciousness is to internally generate counterfactual representations detached from the current sensory events.
- Interactions with generated representations allow an agent to perform a variety of non-reflexive behaviors associated with consciousness such as cognitive functions enabled by consciousness such as intention, imagination, planning, short-term memory, attention, curiosity, and creativity.
- Applying the predictive coding framework, we propose that information generation is performed by top-down predictions in the brain.
- The hypothesis suggests that consciousness emerged in evolution when organisms gained the ability to perform internal simulations using generative models.
Non-reflexive simply said, is being focused in a more dynamic way, and I think having a more attuned and developed imaginative, creative, attentive and planning rich cognitive function is what is hypothesised as being evolutionarily beneficial here.
P.S. Again, Bernado's only citation says the complete opposite of the title of his article!
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (02/17/20 02:42 AM)
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26490333 - 02/17/20 03:46 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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"Quote:
"a mysterious, incomprehensible, absolute, monolith."
You say? ---- That's the first I've heard of this"
- - - -- - - - - - -- - - - . You seem to think i agree with Bernado. I absolutely do not. I was the first to post a reply to DQ and from the beginning I have raised many objections. . As regards my last post, perhaps these folks explain the issue, better than I have, with how certain abuses of language ( which I claim are relevant to Bernado's, and some other's "understandings" of "consciousness") result in misunderstandings, and may have other undesirable effects as well. In fact hey permeate many misunderstandings. . In any case it seems an interesting, but subtle part of life & communication, that most miss outside of certain fields like NLP, and language usage. Within these fields it is considered of major importance. Perhaps some here may find it of interest also.
Edited by laughingdog (02/17/20 03:49 PM)
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26491046 - 02/18/20 01:54 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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This says what it means, and argues;
The ability to generate information underlies a variety of cognitive functions associated with consciousness that contribute to mental acuity.
There's a lot of other detail in this journal like,
Quote:
Drawing upon empirical literature, here, we propose that a core function of consciousness be the ability to internally generate representations of events possibly detached from the current sensory input.
Such representations are constructed by generative models learned through sensory-motor interactions with the environment.
We argue that the ability to generate information underlies a variety of cognitive functions associated with consciousness such as intention, imagination, planning, short-term memory, attention, curiosity, and creativity, all of which contribute to non-reflexive behavior.
From another angle.
Quote:
While consciousness and intelligence are generally distinguished as separate entities, our hypothesis suggests a possible link between the intelligent behavior endowed by flexible use of internal sensorimotor models and consciousness.
What is the functional benefit of having the ability to generate counterfactual representations? Dennett’s formulation of stages of evolution of minds (Dennett 1996) illustrates the benefit of counterfactuals in evolution and intelligence. Dennett proposed useful distinctions among different stages of the evolution of creatures. These include the following four types of creatures.
The rest can be read in,
Quote:
Information generation as a functional basis of consciousness
By Ryota Kanai
Edited by sudly (02/18/20 02:25 AM)
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redgreenvines
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Re: "Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26491167 - 02/18/20 05:12 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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well I hope this has been useful as you resolve your personal key points or questions about consciousness.
I would be very leery of introducing the term information as part of the foundation elements for consciousness since any arrangement of any form of data including the sifting patterns of beach sand, can be called information.
that direction is a bit too loose for me.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Can Only Have Evolved " [Re: redgreenvines]
#26492847 - 02/19/20 05:28 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I find it unfair this thread has allowed the spread of fictitious article titles, in relation to their referenced content.
Fear is usually subjectively unless physically threatened or verbally abused.
That fear can drive your heart rate.
And that should be enough, hard problem solved.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Can Only Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26493137 - 02/19/20 10:01 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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. As regards this example in particular: "Fear is usually subjectively unless physically threatened or verbally abused. "
. Is english your native language? Or do you just post in great haste, or something else? . Use of proper grammar really does help, articulate logical thought. Of course it doesn't matter in everyday life, probably 90 to 99.9... something % of us don't speak grammatically. But if you wish to formulate thoughts others can both understand and respect, IMO it sure helps.
Edited by laughingdog (02/19/20 10:04 AM)
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Can Only Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26493393 - 02/19/20 01:00 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Where is this but gramattically not capable to understand? Pass on the flame if yee can not.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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laughingdog
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Re: "Consciousness Can Only Have Evolved " [Re: sudly]
#26493475 - 02/19/20 02:07 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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. I am not going to teach you grammar online. Ask a few people off line, the more literate the better. There is absolutely no question that the sentence is poorly formed. Your posts have numerous such problems. Whenever we insist on taking offense we pass up an opportunity to learn something new instead. Entirely your choice. Nothing was said about you personally.
Edited by laughingdog (02/19/20 02:09 PM)
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

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Re: "Consciousness Can Only Have Evolved " [Re: laughingdog]
#26493780 - 02/19/20 05:34 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I'm hard pressed to think you'd ever teach me anything.
The ly on the end of subjective is all you're focusing on 
I actually thought to myself when writing it I'd leave it there, because someone might focus on it and nothing else, and fiddle me timbers here you are.
I said I found the spread of an article with a misleading title an unfair thing, and you come at this from grammar.
This isn't the first time and nor do I believe the last, but thanks for not being relevant once again. .
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (02/21/20 01:51 PM)
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