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But unless you're a dualist, you have to admit that our biological brain is a massive bundle of cells from which consciousness somehow arises. It must be those

But unless you're a dualist, you have to admit that our biological brain is a massive bundle of cells from which consciousness somehow arises. It must be those mushy tangled cells, there's nothing else there. It probably is a problem of scale along with a philosophical problem around consciousness likely not quite being what we intuitively imagine it to be. (e.g. visual consciousness seems continuous but we know from saccades that it can't be)

cnity 3y ago
Consciousness is unique, because it gives rise to the problems of qualia. None of the other examples face this issue. A.k.a. "Why is there a "likeness" of subjective experience?" and "why am I me and not somebody else?". Saying that consciousness is merely a side effect of neurons kicks this proverbial can down the road.
- tempaway74641 3y ago
  True. But still, dualism is the only other way out of that conundrum edit: ok you're quite right there are other ways out of the conundrum like idealism
  - Winsaucerer 3y ago
    It's not the only one. Naturalism/physicalism, a monist view, claims there is nothing else except for natural entities or causes. Dualism claims there is nothing else except for natural and mental entities or causes. There is another monist view though, one that sometimes gets called idealism, that says there is nothing else except for mental entities or causes. I lean towards this view. The challenge for naturalism is to explain (or explain away) consciousness (the mental). We call this challenge 'the hard problem of consciousness'. The challenge for idealism is to explain (or explain away) the physical. However, there is no analogous 'hard problem of non-consciousness' (but the explanation of this would take an unreasonable amount of words that I cannot fit here).
    - tempaway74641 3y ago
      I lean towards this view Well don't lean on it too hard because its not very solid ; )
    - simiones 3y ago
      > We call this challenge 'the hard problem of consciousness'. The challenge for idealism is to explain (or explain away) the physical. However, there is no analogous 'hard problem of non-consciousness' (but the explanation of this would take an unreasonable amount of words that I cannot fit here). There absolutely is. If the world is all ideas, then it's just as impossible to explain why different minds have a coherent shared illusion of the physical world, or even any kind of communication between minds at all. I think it's much easier to reject the concept of consciousness in a materialist world view than it is to reject the inexplicably shared physical world in an idealist world view. Of course, there is the simple and self-coherent answer of solipsism, but that's a kind of an intellectual dead end, there's nothing really to discuss about it.
      - tempaway74641 3y ago
        I'm a solipsist and to be honest I'm surprised there's not more of us
        Winsaucerer 3y ago
        Nice joke :)
      - tempaway74641 3y ago
        Yes why are we bothering to use EUV machines to hit 25 micron drops of molten tin that are moving at 70 meters per second with two co-ordinated lasers, 50,000 times a second, to generate light in the right frequency to etch tiny processors onto tiny bits of silicon, so that we can build these machines that we are using to communicate with each other using a network that spans the whole planet ... if none of the physical world is real why have we bothered to build all that. The only conclusion is that if the physical world is not real its not real in a very well simulated way that in practical terms makes it as good as real anyway.
Winsaucerer 3y ago
> unless you're a dualist, you have to admit that our biological brain is a massive bundle of cells from which consciousness somehow arises This is indeed a consequence of a physicalist/naturalist reductionist view. On that view, there is only natural entities and causes, and everything else reduces to just natural entities or causes. Therefore, as you imply, consciousness must somehow be explained by our biological brain or other natural entities/causes (note that I didn't say "arise", since some naturalists deny there's actually any such thing as 'consciousness' to be explained). But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Again, it's not a problem of scale but rather kind. Naturalism just doesn't have the right building blocks to explain (or explain away) consciousness.
- alexey-salmin 3y ago
  > But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false So you believe in a soul or what is the practical consequence?
- simiones 3y ago
  > it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Materialism (the much more common name of "naturalism") can, in principle, very much describe consciousness, if we understood the functionality of the brain enough. We already have an inkling, due to Turing: the human mind is quite possibly a computation, a mathematical object. Consciousness could then be an identifiable aspect of this computation. I do agree though that in general, the materialist position is simply that consciousness is just not that deep a mystery, and some of the "deeper mysteries" like qualia are nothing special that even needs any explanation.
quonn 3y ago
> there's nothing else there By way of analogy, if a civilisation had found an antenna, but has not discovered radio they might think that the internet and it's content is coming from within the antenna, because that's all there is.
- danielbln 3y ago
  They may also have thought that the content is being fed in by a giant purple bunny that lives on the moon.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    You are correct, but do any relevant conclusions necessarily follow from this additional fact? And if not, why do you mention it?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  I was going to counter that we can circuit-bend humans enough to know that the processing is local, unless you're going to claim that every little piece of a human is connecting remotely to the magic-land - but then I remembered that this is exactly how "Internet of Things" starts to look like: tons of devices sitting next to each other, but for no fucking reason, talking through servers on the other side of the planet. So who knows, maybe god is an adtech corporation.
  - GTP 3y ago
    I suspect that if we stop and think about bandwith and transmission speed we likely find out that whatever might be transmitting information to our brains has to sit close to us, but I lack some data to actually do the computation.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      If we jump this far off the beaten path we can probably stop assuming that whatever was transmitting the data would be limited to the 4 dimensional space we're trapped in and could in theory have causal connection via higher dimensions.
pasabagi 3y ago
You can also say 'consciousness doesn't exist, we're all P-zombies'. Or even the more limited version: consciousness exists, but doesn't have a lot of the magical powers usually ascribed to it (free will, etc).

cnity 3y ago

Consciousness is unique, because it gives rise to the problems of qualia. None of the other examples face this issue. A.k.a. "Why is there a "likeness" of subjective experience?" and "why am I me and not somebody else?". Saying that consciousness is merely a side effect of neurons kicks this proverbial can down the road.

tempaway74641 3y ago
True. But still, dualism is the only other way out of that conundrum edit: ok you're quite right there are other ways out of the conundrum like idealism
- Winsaucerer 3y ago
  It's not the only one. Naturalism/physicalism, a monist view, claims there is nothing else except for natural entities or causes. Dualism claims there is nothing else except for natural and mental entities or causes. There is another monist view though, one that sometimes gets called idealism, that says there is nothing else except for mental entities or causes. I lean towards this view. The challenge for naturalism is to explain (or explain away) consciousness (the mental). We call this challenge 'the hard problem of consciousness'. The challenge for idealism is to explain (or explain away) the physical. However, there is no analogous 'hard problem of non-consciousness' (but the explanation of this would take an unreasonable amount of words that I cannot fit here).
  - tempaway74641 3y ago
    I lean towards this view Well don't lean on it too hard because its not very solid ; )
  - simiones 3y ago
    > We call this challenge 'the hard problem of consciousness'. The challenge for idealism is to explain (or explain away) the physical. However, there is no analogous 'hard problem of non-consciousness' (but the explanation of this would take an unreasonable amount of words that I cannot fit here). There absolutely is. If the world is all ideas, then it's just as impossible to explain why different minds have a coherent shared illusion of the physical world, or even any kind of communication between minds at all. I think it's much easier to reject the concept of consciousness in a materialist world view than it is to reject the inexplicably shared physical world in an idealist world view. Of course, there is the simple and self-coherent answer of solipsism, but that's a kind of an intellectual dead end, there's nothing really to discuss about it.
    - tempaway74641 3y ago
      I'm a solipsist and to be honest I'm surprised there's not more of us
      - Winsaucerer 3y ago
        Nice joke :)
    - tempaway74641 3y ago
      Yes why are we bothering to use EUV machines to hit 25 micron drops of molten tin that are moving at 70 meters per second with two co-ordinated lasers, 50,000 times a second, to generate light in the right frequency to etch tiny processors onto tiny bits of silicon, so that we can build these machines that we are using to communicate with each other using a network that spans the whole planet ... if none of the physical world is real why have we bothered to build all that. The only conclusion is that if the physical world is not real its not real in a very well simulated way that in practical terms makes it as good as real anyway.

Winsaucerer 3y ago

> unless you're a dualist, you have to admit that our biological brain is a massive bundle of cells from which consciousness somehow arises This is indeed a consequence of a physicalist/naturalist reductionist view. On that view, there is only natural entities and causes, and everything else reduces to just natural entities or causes. Therefore, as you imply, consciousness must somehow be explained by our biological brain or other natural entities/causes (note that I didn't say "arise", since some naturalists deny there's actually any such thing as 'consciousness' to be explained). But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Again, it's not a problem of scale but rather kind. Naturalism just doesn't have the right building blocks to explain (or explain away) consciousness.

alexey-salmin 3y ago
> But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false So you believe in a soul or what is the practical consequence?
simiones 3y ago
> it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Materialism (the much more common name of "naturalism") can, in principle, very much describe consciousness, if we understood the functionality of the brain enough. We already have an inkling, due to Turing: the human mind is quite possibly a computation, a mathematical object. Consciousness could then be an identifiable aspect of this computation. I do agree though that in general, the materialist position is simply that consciousness is just not that deep a mystery, and some of the "deeper mysteries" like qualia are nothing special that even needs any explanation.

quonn 3y ago

> there's nothing else there By way of analogy, if a civilisation had found an antenna, but has not discovered radio they might think that the internet and it's content is coming from within the antenna, because that's all there is.

danielbln 3y ago
They may also have thought that the content is being fed in by a giant purple bunny that lives on the moon.
- mistermann 3y ago
  You are correct, but do any relevant conclusions necessarily follow from this additional fact? And if not, why do you mention it?
TeMPOraL 3y ago
I was going to counter that we can circuit-bend humans enough to know that the processing is local, unless you're going to claim that every little piece of a human is connecting remotely to the magic-land - but then I remembered that this is exactly how "Internet of Things" starts to look like: tons of devices sitting next to each other, but for no fucking reason, talking through servers on the other side of the planet. So who knows, maybe god is an adtech corporation.
- GTP 3y ago
  I suspect that if we stop and think about bandwith and transmission speed we likely find out that whatever might be transmitting information to our brains has to sit close to us, but I lack some data to actually do the computation.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    If we jump this far off the beaten path we can probably stop assuming that whatever was transmitting the data would be limited to the 4 dimensional space we're trapped in and could in theory have causal connection via higher dimensions.

pasabagi 3y ago

You can also say 'consciousness doesn't exist, we're all P-zombies'. Or even the more limited version: consciousness exists, but doesn't have a lot of the magical powers usually ascribed to it (free will, etc).