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>There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies Actually this is backward, "I think th

>There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies Actually this is backward, "I think therefore I am". There's no reason to believe consciousness is a state arising from a physical process, our experience of consciousness precedes our experience of sensory input and therefore the physical world. There is more evidence for the reality of consciousness than there is for the physical world, in fact we know for a fact that our understanding of the physical world is aberrational. edit: evidently alot of empiricists aren't very happy with this comment hahaha

jemmyw 3y ago
There are plenty of reasons to believe it's physical. I mean, in some ways I can't believe I'm having to write "there are no ghosts" to a technically minded community. If consciousness was not physical then where is it? Why would it switch on and off with physical changes to brains? Why would you be able to get altered states of consciousness with chemicals, disease and age? Why would be be able to marry some conscious activity with MRI scans? There's quite a few bits of evidence to suggest it's physical even if we don't know how it works. There doesn't appear to be any evidence of another... what is a non physical process anyway? Surely there's only two options: the physics we know and the physics we don't know?
- BasedAnon 3y ago
  The difference is that you do not experience ghosts, but you do experience conciousness. >If consciousness was not physical then where is it? We can invert this and ask, if physicality is not ideal, then how do we come to know it? >Surely there's only two options: the physics we know and the physics we don't know? The third option is that physics is unable to interrogate itself.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    > We can invert this and ask, if physicality is not ideal, then how do we come to know it? Why would we ask that? Not ideal for what? It just is. > The third option is that physics is unable to interrogate itself. This is likely true. We are the product of physics and we can only delve so deep. It might be that we cannot see to the most fundamental level(s). That's not a third option though, that's just the state of any scientific investigation at any point of time. However, given all we have learnt so far, what we don't need to do is invent new gods for the levels we cannot see or the things we cannot yet understand. I mean, people will, evidently, but that's all just wishful thinking. Meanwhile there is slow progress to piece together how the brain works. My opinion is that we will figure it out but the answers about consciousness will be unsatisfactory. Just like right now, given the current understanding of physical processes even taking into account quantum systems having probabilistic outcomes, we have no free will. It's an answer, I find it a compelling one, but most folks don't like that answer.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      > Why would we ask that? Not ideal for what? It just is. I'm pretty sure GP was using "ideal" in the sense of "made up of ideas", as in the philosophical concept of idealism, which is essentially the opposite of materialism: idealism is the position that the real world is that of the mind, and physics and the physical world is an emergent property of our minds, not the other way around. Not that I think this is a real coherent position worth discussing.
      - jemmyw 3y ago
        Thanks that was insightful
      - skissane 3y ago
        > Not that I think this is a real coherent position worth discussing. Why is it not a "real coherent position worth discussing"?
        tsimionescu 3y ago
        Because to me it seems that if it were made consistent, it would extend into solipsism. And if it does, I don't think it's worth discussing then.
        skissane 3y ago
        What is inconsistent about non-solipsistic idealism?
        hnfong 3y ago
        “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. IMHO it is the only thing worth discussing. And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone.
        skissane 3y ago
        > “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. Idealists can take several possible approaches to the issue of how many people/minds exist: 1) Solipsism: only I exist, and everyone else is a figment of my imagination 2) Many minds: only minds ultimately exist, but many distinct minds exist (George Berkeley, John McTaggart) 3) Open individualism: I exist and everyone else exists too, but we are all ultimately the same person, and the idea that we are different people is an illusion (not necessarily an idealist view, but one open to an idealist to adopt; most famous notable proponent is Daniel Kolak; but Kolak in the introduction of his book I Am You extensively quotes the physicists Freeman Dyson and Erwin Schrödinger as expressing the same view) 4) Pan(en)theism: only one mind/person ultimately exists, but we are somehow "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" of that ultimate person. One might call that single ultimate person "God", albeit it is defining the term "God" in a very different way than classical Western theism does. Or, maybe we could call it the "Universe", or borrow Plato's term "the World Soul". (Maybe there is not much difference between (3) and (4), but (4) would view the distinction between different "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" as more "real" than (3) does.) 5) Panpsychism: everything in the universe (even individual atoms) is conscious, and hence has a distinct mind. This in a sense is a variant of (2), but proposes far more minds than Berkeley or McTaggart would ever have admitted. Not all panpsychists are idealists, but you can certainly be an idealist panpsychist Critics of idealism tend to focus on (1), but in practice (1) has never had any serious proponents. All serious idealists have espoused (2)-(5) (or maybe some other variation I've missed) See also the philosopher David Chalmers' paper in which he proposes his own taxonomy of idealisms, different from mine: https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf As an idealist, my starting position is (2), although I have some sympathy for (4). > And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone. I don't know exactly what you mean, but I'm not a fan of that kind of talk. We have to distinguish between physics the natural science, and the philosophical discipline of the philosophy of physics, which is a sub-discipline of the philosophy of science The idealism debate fundamentally belongs to metaphysics (although contemporary presentations often focus on it through the lens of philosophy of mind instead), but it has obvious consequences for other philosophical disciplines, including epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and indeed philosophy of physics But while adopting idealism must lead us to a different philosophy of physics, the actual content of physics the natural science is unchanged. Physics the natural science is ultimately just a bunch of mathematical tools for predicting future observations. Those tools, and how you use them, are exactly the same whether you are a materialist, an idealist, a dualist, or none of the above. The only difference is your answer to the philosophical debates about what those tools ultimately are, or what they ultimately mean.
- suggestion 3y ago
  >Why would be be able to marry some conscious activity with MRI scans? Does the activity cause the changes on the scan or does the changes in the scan cause the activity? How does neuroplasticity result in physical changes to the brain through, for example, cognitive behavioral therapy? Do the thoughts alter the physical structure or does the structure cause the thoughts even before the structural changes?
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    Internal feedback loops. Activity from the existing structure further modifies that structure. That activity is that thoughts are. So sure but it's all physical.
    - suggestion 3y ago
      That doesn't make any sense. If that's the case, the physical change should precede the changes in thought patterns. Also, physicalism is about as empirical as falling in love. It's far from definitive, proven, fact. There's no chemical emission that can force someone to have an exact thought, dream, or inner dialogue.
      - jemmyw 3y ago
        There are always physical changes happening. External stimuli, and time based internal changes. > If that's the case, the physical change should precede the changes in thought patterns. Not precede, are. These aren't separate things. > There's no chemical emission that can force someone to have an exact thought, dream, or inner dialogue. How do you know that to be the case? It seems likely to me that an exact set of sufficiently complicated inputs and stimuli could generate an exact thought. Actually doing so would be too complex to figure out, but many physical systems are like that.
        suggestion 3y ago
        If it seems likely to you, then you're not as much of an empiricist as you claim
- amatecha 3y ago
  Yeah I’m not sure why someone would argue that consciousness isn’t physical. Take a conscious person and knock them hard in the head. Interesting, their consciousness is altered. Take drugs? Check it out, consciousness altered. People who experience head trauma have their personality permanently altered. In the course of life you will likely directly observe the effects of physical injury on a person’s consciousness, just due to how often that kind of stuff happens.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    > Yeah I’m not sure why someone would argue that consciousness isn’t physical Reading the comments, one thing that's been unsaid is whether each person discussing is religious/spiritual or not. My guess is that if you are religious then the idea of there being another layer in the universe goes without saying, and if you are not then it's ridiculous. It's probably a waste of time debating across that line.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      For me it has very little to do with religiousness but rather calming down some rather frequent panic attacks in the middle of the night. The fact that thinking the wrong thing can erase your consciousness while thinking it, doesn't help from the group that believes thinking the wrong thing erases consciousness.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    The difference is people like you mean consciousness = "consciousness as the average human experiences it", whereas others include every single potential conscious experience, including the delibitated one. From your perspective, a knocked out human isn't conscious the same way a corpse is not conscious, because he does not conform to the average human experience. Meanwhile others think that the knocked out human and the corpse and the average human are all conscious, but they experience their respective consciousnessess aka the consciousness of an average human, knocked out human or corpse. You could say that this is just a disagreement in what the word conscious means.
- akomtu 3y ago
  The idea that consciousness is physical doesn't mean it's mechanical. Physical world is made of fields with no clear boundaries, while mechanical system are made of isolated deterministic and immutable parts.
orwin 3y ago
No. Or rather what do you mean? We are able to track down and physically explain (thanks to MRI) the sentation, the objective part of consciousness (Chalmers's 'easy problems of consciousness'). That really exist and we can prove it (or we have an idea about experiments to run to prove it) I suppose here you're talking about the subjective sentation, the phenomenal experience, the 'hard problem', and you reference the 'cogito' not because you are a dualists, but because you truly think Descartes was right on this point (and this point only, the rest was extremely weak). I will argue that you're wrong. There is absolutely no evidence to the cogito, at most billions of anecdata from homo sapiens who all have similar brains and reactions! Some people believe subjective experience do not really exist [0][1]. A simple explanation would be: if we are somehow able to predict, by pure observation of predictable physical reactions, how an organism will act and react, including the fact that he will believe in a subjective experience, then we do not need to think subjective experience really exist. This is merely a tool for our bodies to create a sense of self unique through time, created from our own continuous perceptions, to allow our brains to strategize and avoid dangers. [0]https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02071-y https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02071-y [1]https://github.com/keithfrankish/articles/blob/master/Frankish_Illusionism%20as%20a%20theory%20of%20consciousness_eprint.pdf https://github.com/keithfrankish/articles/blob/master/Franki...
- BasedAnon 3y ago
  >We are able to track down and physically explain (thanks to MRI) the sentation, the objective part of consciousness (Chalmers's 'easy problems of consciousness'). That really exist and we can prove it (or we have an idea about experiments to run to prove it) What we prove is an evidence that is filtered through our sensory faculties and experienced by our minds. Our minds still remain judge, jury and executioner and in this same sense if we are to take seriously the faculties of our minds in assessing the physical world, then we must also take seriously our experience of conciousness which remains even when we are unable to sense the physical world. In this sense our experience of conciousness is more real than our looking at an MRI. >then we do not need to think subjective experience really exist. What would follow is that you do not need to think subjective experiences exist for others, but for you to make this assessment you at least must have a subjective experience.
aiProgMach 3y ago
Thank you. It's really mind boggling how many people miss _this_ especially in scientism echo chambers. My knowledge about myself (consciousness, free will...), is infinitely more reliable than any of "Scientific" input no matter what is the "impact factor" of the publishing medium, so really no amount of "science" can be enough to disprove those very basic principles that everything else is built upon them.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  I think individual self-knowledge is often flawed. There are many strange, damaged, malfunctioning, drunk, medicated, hallucinating, meditating, dreaming and variously other disturbed minds, which have objectively flawed impressions of themselves and their surroundings. Their doctors, or even a casual observer, will have much more concrete objective knowledge of their state of mind than the subjects themselves.
  - aiProgMach 3y ago
    What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view): 1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world 2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in principal (that's why they can deduce that there are flaws in the patient mind just based on external behaviour) 3- The doctor is trusting that he's not himself hallucinating, and that he's indeed see'ing real things and he's not just a programmed robot doing some random job. and so on. -- As you can see I was talking about very basic level, it's the level that allow you to build another more complex level of information, and which any other information is necessarily less reliable than it. Because trusting that I'm independent agent who exists in an objective world along another independent agents is a necessary Premise to accept any external information provided by those other agents, and any information provided by those agents that contradicts this basic experience it also destroys any reliability in the objectivity and correctness of their existence for me and any input provided by them. Hence, any "scientific" paper that contradicts my direct experience about myself (e.g Free will) is necessarily less reliable than said experience no matter what is the impact factor of the journal.

jemmyw 3y ago

There are plenty of reasons to believe it's physical. I mean, in some ways I can't believe I'm having to write "there are no ghosts" to a technically minded community. If consciousness was not physical then where is it? Why would it switch on and off with physical changes to brains? Why would you be able to get altered states of consciousness with chemicals, disease and age? Why would be be able to marry some conscious activity with MRI scans? There's quite a few bits of evidence to suggest it's physical even if we don't know how it works. There doesn't appear to be any evidence of another... what is a non physical process anyway? Surely there's only two options: the physics we know and the physics we don't know?

BasedAnon 3y ago
The difference is that you do not experience ghosts, but you do experience conciousness. >If consciousness was not physical then where is it? We can invert this and ask, if physicality is not ideal, then how do we come to know it? >Surely there's only two options: the physics we know and the physics we don't know? The third option is that physics is unable to interrogate itself.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  > We can invert this and ask, if physicality is not ideal, then how do we come to know it? Why would we ask that? Not ideal for what? It just is. > The third option is that physics is unable to interrogate itself. This is likely true. We are the product of physics and we can only delve so deep. It might be that we cannot see to the most fundamental level(s). That's not a third option though, that's just the state of any scientific investigation at any point of time. However, given all we have learnt so far, what we don't need to do is invent new gods for the levels we cannot see or the things we cannot yet understand. I mean, people will, evidently, but that's all just wishful thinking. Meanwhile there is slow progress to piece together how the brain works. My opinion is that we will figure it out but the answers about consciousness will be unsatisfactory. Just like right now, given the current understanding of physical processes even taking into account quantum systems having probabilistic outcomes, we have no free will. It's an answer, I find it a compelling one, but most folks don't like that answer.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    > Why would we ask that? Not ideal for what? It just is. I'm pretty sure GP was using "ideal" in the sense of "made up of ideas", as in the philosophical concept of idealism, which is essentially the opposite of materialism: idealism is the position that the real world is that of the mind, and physics and the physical world is an emergent property of our minds, not the other way around. Not that I think this is a real coherent position worth discussing.
    - jemmyw 3y ago
      Thanks that was insightful
    - skissane 3y ago
      > Not that I think this is a real coherent position worth discussing. Why is it not a "real coherent position worth discussing"?
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        Because to me it seems that if it were made consistent, it would extend into solipsism. And if it does, I don't think it's worth discussing then.
        skissane 3y ago
        What is inconsistent about non-solipsistic idealism?
        hnfong 3y ago
        “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. IMHO it is the only thing worth discussing. And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone.
        skissane 3y ago
        > “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. Idealists can take several possible approaches to the issue of how many people/minds exist: 1) Solipsism: only I exist, and everyone else is a figment of my imagination 2) Many minds: only minds ultimately exist, but many distinct minds exist (George Berkeley, John McTaggart) 3) Open individualism: I exist and everyone else exists too, but we are all ultimately the same person, and the idea that we are different people is an illusion (not necessarily an idealist view, but one open to an idealist to adopt; most famous notable proponent is Daniel Kolak; but Kolak in the introduction of his book I Am You extensively quotes the physicists Freeman Dyson and Erwin Schrödinger as expressing the same view) 4) Pan(en)theism: only one mind/person ultimately exists, but we are somehow "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" of that ultimate person. One might call that single ultimate person "God", albeit it is defining the term "God" in a very different way than classical Western theism does. Or, maybe we could call it the "Universe", or borrow Plato's term "the World Soul". (Maybe there is not much difference between (3) and (4), but (4) would view the distinction between different "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" as more "real" than (3) does.) 5) Panpsychism: everything in the universe (even individual atoms) is conscious, and hence has a distinct mind. This in a sense is a variant of (2), but proposes far more minds than Berkeley or McTaggart would ever have admitted. Not all panpsychists are idealists, but you can certainly be an idealist panpsychist Critics of idealism tend to focus on (1), but in practice (1) has never had any serious proponents. All serious idealists have espoused (2)-(5) (or maybe some other variation I've missed) See also the philosopher David Chalmers' paper in which he proposes his own taxonomy of idealisms, different from mine: https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf As an idealist, my starting position is (2), although I have some sympathy for (4). > And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone. I don't know exactly what you mean, but I'm not a fan of that kind of talk. We have to distinguish between physics the natural science, and the philosophical discipline of the philosophy of physics, which is a sub-discipline of the philosophy of science The idealism debate fundamentally belongs to metaphysics (although contemporary presentations often focus on it through the lens of philosophy of mind instead), but it has obvious consequences for other philosophical disciplines, including epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and indeed philosophy of physics But while adopting idealism must lead us to a different philosophy of physics, the actual content of physics the natural science is unchanged. Physics the natural science is ultimately just a bunch of mathematical tools for predicting future observations. Those tools, and how you use them, are exactly the same whether you are a materialist, an idealist, a dualist, or none of the above. The only difference is your answer to the philosophical debates about what those tools ultimately are, or what they ultimately mean.
suggestion 3y ago
>Why would be be able to marry some conscious activity with MRI scans? Does the activity cause the changes on the scan or does the changes in the scan cause the activity? How does neuroplasticity result in physical changes to the brain through, for example, cognitive behavioral therapy? Do the thoughts alter the physical structure or does the structure cause the thoughts even before the structural changes?
- jemmyw 3y ago
  Internal feedback loops. Activity from the existing structure further modifies that structure. That activity is that thoughts are. So sure but it's all physical.
  - suggestion 3y ago
    That doesn't make any sense. If that's the case, the physical change should precede the changes in thought patterns. Also, physicalism is about as empirical as falling in love. It's far from definitive, proven, fact. There's no chemical emission that can force someone to have an exact thought, dream, or inner dialogue.
    - jemmyw 3y ago
      There are always physical changes happening. External stimuli, and time based internal changes. > If that's the case, the physical change should precede the changes in thought patterns. Not precede, are. These aren't separate things. > There's no chemical emission that can force someone to have an exact thought, dream, or inner dialogue. How do you know that to be the case? It seems likely to me that an exact set of sufficiently complicated inputs and stimuli could generate an exact thought. Actually doing so would be too complex to figure out, but many physical systems are like that.
      - suggestion 3y ago
        If it seems likely to you, then you're not as much of an empiricist as you claim
amatecha 3y ago
Yeah I’m not sure why someone would argue that consciousness isn’t physical. Take a conscious person and knock them hard in the head. Interesting, their consciousness is altered. Take drugs? Check it out, consciousness altered. People who experience head trauma have their personality permanently altered. In the course of life you will likely directly observe the effects of physical injury on a person’s consciousness, just due to how often that kind of stuff happens.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  > Yeah I’m not sure why someone would argue that consciousness isn’t physical Reading the comments, one thing that's been unsaid is whether each person discussing is religious/spiritual or not. My guess is that if you are religious then the idea of there being another layer in the universe goes without saying, and if you are not then it's ridiculous. It's probably a waste of time debating across that line.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    For me it has very little to do with religiousness but rather calming down some rather frequent panic attacks in the middle of the night. The fact that thinking the wrong thing can erase your consciousness while thinking it, doesn't help from the group that believes thinking the wrong thing erases consciousness.
- imtringued 3y ago
  The difference is people like you mean consciousness = "consciousness as the average human experiences it", whereas others include every single potential conscious experience, including the delibitated one. From your perspective, a knocked out human isn't conscious the same way a corpse is not conscious, because he does not conform to the average human experience. Meanwhile others think that the knocked out human and the corpse and the average human are all conscious, but they experience their respective consciousnessess aka the consciousness of an average human, knocked out human or corpse. You could say that this is just a disagreement in what the word conscious means.
akomtu 3y ago
The idea that consciousness is physical doesn't mean it's mechanical. Physical world is made of fields with no clear boundaries, while mechanical system are made of isolated deterministic and immutable parts.

orwin 3y ago

No. Or rather what do you mean? We are able to track down and physically explain (thanks to MRI) the sentation, the objective part of consciousness (Chalmers's 'easy problems of consciousness'). That really exist and we can prove it (or we have an idea about experiments to run to prove it) I suppose here you're talking about the subjective sentation, the phenomenal experience, the 'hard problem', and you reference the 'cogito' not because you are a dualists, but because you truly think Descartes was right on this point (and this point only, the rest was extremely weak). I will argue that you're wrong. There is absolutely no evidence to the cogito, at most billions of anecdata from homo sapiens who all have similar brains and reactions! Some people believe subjective experience do not really exist [0][1]. A simple explanation would be: if we are somehow able to predict, by pure observation of predictable physical reactions, how an organism will act and react, including the fact that he will believe in a subjective experience, then we do not need to think subjective experience really exist. This is merely a tool for our bodies to create a sense of self unique through time, created from our own continuous perceptions, to allow our brains to strategize and avoid dangers. [0]https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02071-y https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02071-y [1]https://github.com/keithfrankish/articles/blob/master/Frankish_Illusionism%20as%20a%20theory%20of%20consciousness_eprint.pdf https://github.com/keithfrankish/articles/blob/master/Franki...

BasedAnon 3y ago
>We are able to track down and physically explain (thanks to MRI) the sentation, the objective part of consciousness (Chalmers's 'easy problems of consciousness'). That really exist and we can prove it (or we have an idea about experiments to run to prove it) What we prove is an evidence that is filtered through our sensory faculties and experienced by our minds. Our minds still remain judge, jury and executioner and in this same sense if we are to take seriously the faculties of our minds in assessing the physical world, then we must also take seriously our experience of conciousness which remains even when we are unable to sense the physical world. In this sense our experience of conciousness is more real than our looking at an MRI. >then we do not need to think subjective experience really exist. What would follow is that you do not need to think subjective experiences exist for others, but for you to make this assessment you at least must have a subjective experience.

aiProgMach 3y ago

Thank you. It's really mind boggling how many people miss _this_ especially in scientism echo chambers. My knowledge about myself (consciousness, free will...), is infinitely more reliable than any of "Scientific" input no matter what is the "impact factor" of the publishing medium, so really no amount of "science" can be enough to disprove those very basic principles that everything else is built upon them.

mikhailfranco 3y ago
I think individual self-knowledge is often flawed. There are many strange, damaged, malfunctioning, drunk, medicated, hallucinating, meditating, dreaming and variously other disturbed minds, which have objectively flawed impressions of themselves and their surroundings. Their doctors, or even a casual observer, will have much more concrete objective knowledge of their state of mind than the subjects themselves.
- aiProgMach 3y ago
  What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view): 1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world 2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in principal (that's why they can deduce that there are flaws in the patient mind just based on external behaviour) 3- The doctor is trusting that he's not himself hallucinating, and that he's indeed see'ing real things and he's not just a programmed robot doing some random job. and so on. -- As you can see I was talking about very basic level, it's the level that allow you to build another more complex level of information, and which any other information is necessarily less reliable than it. Because trusting that I'm independent agent who exists in an objective world along another independent agents is a necessary Premise to accept any external information provided by those other agents, and any information provided by those agents that contradicts this basic experience it also destroys any reliability in the objectivity and correctness of their existence for me and any input provided by them. Hence, any "scientific" paper that contradicts my direct experience about myself (e.g Free will) is necessarily less reliable than said experience no matter what is the impact factor of the journal.