EPTOn July 03 2013 08:47 Nachtwind wrote:
So if i die, do i get ANYHOW the chance to kick you all in your "ass" then?
You people make me sick
So if i die, do i get ANYHOW the chance to kick you all in your "ass" then?
You people make me sick
Lmao what?
Is the mind all chemical and electricity? - Page 26
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FallDownMarigold
United States3710 Posts
Lmao what? | ||
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Zahir
United States947 Posts
Quite the definitive answer there. Seeing as how no one actually knows what consciousness is or how it operates and all we have are guesses based on subjective experience and anecdotes relayed to us by other entities who may be "p zombies" for all we know. I don't really believe consciousness is anything special. Get any sufficiently advanced neural network and program it to believe it is conscious. Is it really conscious or just incapable of realizing it isn't? This is why you can't make assertions based on your own subjective experience / experience of others. You have no way of screening your brain to see whether it is conscious in some metaphysical way or just "conscious" because some chemical or electrical impulses tell it it is | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
Metaphysical explanations don't work because there's no way to learn about them. They don't predict anything. There's no experiments. There's no empiricism. It's just blah. If your explanation can explain everything, then your explanation just as good as no explanation at all. It's far more tantalizing to realize that we can learn what consciousness is. That it is not only physical, but learnable and understandable. That shouldn't frighten you. That should seem really fucking cool. Don't be seduced by non-answers. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
Why do I have to do this? Open a dictionary. Couldn't consciousness simply be the fact of processing information, you ask? No. By definition, consciousness is having awareness of one's own existence and having sensations, etc. Definitions of consciousness sometimes explain it differently but as a general rule, that's what it is. It's not simply processing information. If we agree that consciousness is processing information, then a machine which puts the blue balls in the blue bucket and the red balls in the red bucket is "conscious". That sounds ridiculous but it's what it is. The reason why I said "no" is not just because your definition is silly. More importantly, your definition is completely different from the actual intended meaning of the word. You're defining "consciousness" off of your own gut feeling about what the word should mean. You don't get to do that. | ||
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casuistry
56 Posts
Because it feeeels different to the one processing. Nevermind the dozens of studies proving that the brain deceives itself in a dozen different ways, we still rely on our own feelings to make sense of the world. Couldn't consciousness simply be the fact of processing information, you ask? No. By definition, consciousness is having awareness of one's own existence and having sensations, etc. Awareness and sensations are not information? | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On July 03 2013 09:54 Djzapz wrote: Why do I have to do this? Open a dictionary. Couldn't consciousness simply be the fact of processing information, you ask? No. By definition, consciousness is having awareness of one's own existence and having sensations, etc. Definitions of consciousness sometimes explain it differently but as a general rule, that's what it is. It's not simply processing information. If we agree that consciousness is processing information, then a machine which puts the blue balls in the blue bucket and the red balls in the red bucket is "conscious". That sounds ridiculous but it's what it is. The reason why I said "no" is not just because your definition is silly. More importantly, your definition is completely different from the actual intended meaning of the word. You're defining "consciousness" off of your own gut feeling about what the word should mean. You don't get to do that. As I understood that he was NOT defining consciousness, he was presenting a hypothesis that what we call consciousness is merely side-effect/artifact/... of processing information. Even more he did not at all say that it is ANY act of processing information so your objection is invalid no matter what. | ||
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Myrddraal
Australia937 Posts
On July 03 2013 02:27 Snusmumriken wrote: What the chinese room shows, if anything, is that no matter how complicated we make a machine all we seem to end up with is syntax. When exactly do we get semantics, ie meaning, into the picture. We have no answer to that question and it is unintuitive that we would end up with anything like that no matter how complicated the computer. Similarily, the problem of consciousness is not so much things such as memory or some parts of thinking, those we can understand; the problem of consciousness is why there is such a thing as "feeling" anything at all in the first place. Why is there qualitative aspects of conscoiusness in the first place, why isnt all this going on in the dark? There is indeed reason to accept physicalism, but it is more because of how nonsensical alternative theories are than because we can make sense of a purely physical mind. I would like to quote Nagel: Strangely enough, we may have evidence for the truth of something we cannot really understand. Suppose a caterpillar is locked in a sterile safe by someone unfamiliar with insect metamorphosis, and weeks later the safe is reopened, revealing a butterfly. If the person knows that the safe has been shut the whole time, he has reason to believe that the butterfly is or was once the caterpillar, without having any idea in what sense this might be so. (One possibility is that the caterpillar contained a tiny winged parasite that devoured it and grew into the butterfly.) It is conceivable that we are in such a position with regard to physicalism http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html I disagree with this, what are semantics or meaning other than the association of different concepts? The only way we can describe what something means, is by explaining it relative to something else. Of course we often do this ourselves instinctively based off past information, but there is no reason that a computer could not run algorithms to do the same. However I do think enabling a computer to figure out meaning by itself would be very difficult, but not impossible. On July 03 2013 03:49 Rassy wrote: "the problem of consciousness is not so much things such as memory or some parts of thinking, those we can understand; the problem of consciousness is why there is such a thing as "feeling" anything at all in the first place. Why is there qualitative aspects of conscoiusness in the first place, why isnt all this going on in the dark?" Consciousness comes from the ability of the human brain to go ahead and back in time.(probably at a verry small scale) Where this ability to go ahead and back in time comes from i dont know but my speculation is that it somehow comes from quantum or string physics. I am strongly convinced that a concept like this can fully explain consiousness at one point and i wish some of the more knowledgeable people like daniel dennet would start researching in this direction, unfortunatly i lack the knowledge (and probably also intelect lol) to start working on this idea myself. If we could make a computer wich could go ahead and back in time by verry small amounts, i do think it could have a similar consiousness as we do. Why would these functionalities that you describe as going forward and backwards in time have to be related to quantum or string physics? The reasoning that makes most sense to me, is that they are simply prediction and review algorithms applied to information. We are constantly receiving and processing information, it makes sense that our brain would use this information to make predictions about the future (on a small and large scale) and I don't see why a computer couldn't do this either. Obviously the computers predictions would be limited by the input and algorithms that it is given, but essentially so are we. | ||
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Myrddraal
Australia937 Posts
On July 03 2013 09:31 DoubleReed wrote: I just don't see what appeals to people about the metaphysical. It's just another Mysterious Answer to a Mysterious Question. Answers are not supposed to be mysterious. When we're given an answer, we're supposed to actually gain new information. Metaphysical explanations don't work because there's no way to learn about them. They don't predict anything. There's no experiments. There's no empiricism. It's just blah. If your explanation can explain everything, then your explanation just as good as no explanation at all. It's far more tantalizing to realize that we can learn what consciousness is. That it is not only physical, but learnable and understandable. That shouldn't frighten you. That should seem really fucking cool. Don't be seduced by non-answers. I understand what you are saying, but I fully see why metaphysical concepts appeal to people. It's appeals to our imagination, and to be honest if they were somehow proven to exist (I know that doesn't really make sense since for something to exist it has to be real) that would be really fucking cool too. I can also understand how people who believe in metaphysical or mystical concepts, could find physicalism or determinism bleak since what they believe in is pretty much "more than reality" by definition, I think it's just a matter of relativity. For example, if you believed in dragons, a tiger would seem less badass by comparison, however if you had never heard of or for some reason were incapable of considering the concept of dragons, you would still consider a tiger to be one of the most badass animals. As for the fear, I think it is less the fear that consciousness can be fully learnable and understandable, but that they are hoping for it to be fully understandable and metaphysical in that it could lead to the discovery of the soul or some kind of higher power that could give them greater purpose. If consciousness is shown to be purely physical, it's kind of like shutting a potential door that higher power. I, and I'm assuming you, feel that these metaphysical outcomes are unlikely, and even if they were possible I can't even imagine how they would be detected or examined, but that doesn't mean I can't see why people would be drawn to such concepts and hesitant to let go without good reason*. *Where good reason is determined by the person themself, sometimes something simply being true is not enough to convince someone that it is. | ||
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cost2010
Germany46 Posts
On July 03 2013 03:43 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: To be fair death does mean the end of your conciousness/ ability to process information / whatever you want to call it. Necessarily this means that while, you might still exist, your experience of the universe is at an end. Assuming no conciousness after death, the end of your experience is functionally the same as the end of the universe for you. So from a functional perspective, death might well be equivalent to the 'end of everything' for the subjective observer, given that, I don't think it's fair to say fear of death is irrational. I also don't think EVERYONE wants immortality either, I know I don't unless the immortality takes a form that satisfies quite alot of criteria that would make it not terrible. But isn't it highly irrational to be afraid of something you can never experience? to quote Marcus Aurelius on this: "He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live." I may fear the act of dying because I think it might be unpleasant (but then I still have to put maybe a few minutes of agony into the perspective of my whole life) but in death there will be no "me" left to experience anything at all. "I" and "death" never cross ways, because death begins when I end - I will never encounter it, I will never be able to reflect on the loss of sensation, it will never be able to inflict any pain or discomfort on me, ... Most languages are highly misleading in this regard as they don't see death as an end but rather as a transition into a different state of life (in Hades, She'ol, ...): the sentence "he is dead" implies that there still is a "he" somewhere who is now in a state of death (contrast to "he is no more"). The only reason to fear "death" is if you fear that it might be an uncomfortable continuation of life in some sort of afterworld. But if you hold it for true that "you" are no more than the interaction of physical elements in your brain, then death is nothing to be feared as it effectively doesn't exist for you. | ||
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DertoQq
France906 Posts
On July 03 2013 09:54 Djzapz wrote: Why do I have to do this? Open a dictionary. Couldn't consciousness simply be the fact of processing information, you ask? No. By definition, consciousness is having awareness of one's own existence and having sensations, etc. Definitions of consciousness sometimes explain it differently but as a general rule, that's what it is. It's not simply processing information. If we agree that consciousness is processing information, then a machine which puts the blue balls in the blue bucket and the red balls in the red bucket is "conscious". That sounds ridiculous but it's what it is. The reason why I said "no" is not just because your definition is silly. More importantly, your definition is completely different from the actual intended meaning of the word. You're defining "consciousness" off of your own gut feeling about what the word should mean. You don't get to do that. Actually yes, you get to do that. Arguing about the the definition of a word in the dictionary in this kind of thread is at stupid as it gets. Everyone understood what he was saying (and so do you) but you still choose to argue on syntax. ----- Neurobiology has come far enough that we can say that the ability to be self-conscious (ie : being aware of yourself, and asking question about it) is merely done by processing information. As a human our brain is capable to process information more complex than other animals, but the basic principle behind it is the same. I can understand the need of some people to use religion to answer their question, simply because there are questions that are extremely difficult (or impossible) to answer using science, like the creation of the universe etc.. But the brain ? it is not something hard to explain. Everything you feel, everything you think of and consciousness are stuff really logical and easy to explain using science. Why would anyone need to add something metaphysical to something like that ? | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On July 03 2013 16:02 cost2010 wrote: But isn't it highly irrational to be afraid of something you can never experience? to quote Marcus Aurelius on this: I may fear the act of dying because I think it might be unpleasant (but then I still have to put maybe a few minutes of agony into the perspective of my whole life) but in death there will be no "me" left to experience anything at all. "I" and "death" never cross ways, because death begins when I end - I will never encounter it, I will never be able to reflect on the loss of sensation, it will never be able to inflict any pain or discomfort on me, ... Most languages are highly misleading in this regard as they don't see death as an end but rather as a transition into a different state of life (in Hades, She'ol, ...): the sentence "he is dead" implies that there still is a "he" somewhere who is now in a state of death (contrast to "he is no more"). The only reason to fear "death" is if you fear that it might be an uncomfortable continuation of life in some sort of afterworld. But if you hold it for true that "you" are no more than the interaction of physical elements in your brain, then death is nothing to be feared as it effectively doesn't exist for you. I don't fear death because I suppose it would be unpleasant to me after the fact. I fear death because the concept of no longer experiencing the universe seems unpleasant to me NOW. That is to say, I don't think I would (or could) fear being dead once I'm actually dead, but my best guesses at the implications of being dead seem unpleasant to the sensibilities I currently possess (even if i probably won't possess them when I'm dead). At the very least, it seems like a massive opportunity cost to pay, no longer being able to experience anything. I may not be able to appreciate the cost that is paid once I'm dead, but I can certainly appreciate the cost beforehand (eg now).Thinking that you may fear death once your dead, could be irrational, depending on what exactly you think death may entail, but fearing death when your alive seems perfectly rational to me. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be beneficial. Cognitive behavioral therapy allows the patient to challenge dysfunctional thoughts or beliefs by being mindful of their own feelings with the aim that the patient will realize their fear is irrational why would the realization of the irrationality of said fear, treat/cure a physical mechanism?. even if it would not provide a cure, it does seem like the mind/consciousness has some control power over the manifestation of physical mechanisms. my general/current take on stuff: one can not control the reaction but he can control the action. laws of the universe/physics/chemistry/biology control the reaction, free will controls the action. | ||
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DertoQq
France906 Posts
On July 03 2013 17:37 xM(Z wrote: so how would you explain phobias? or, if everything is physical, why are phobias 'treated' psychologically?. why would the realization of the irrationality of said fear, treat/cure a physical mechanism?. even if it would not provide a cure, it does seem like the mind/consciousness has some control power over the manifestation of physical mechanisms. my general/current take on stuff: one can not control the reaction but he can control the action. laws of the universe/physics/chemistry/biology control the reaction, free will controls the action. Because a psychological treatment is technically a physical treatment. Every time you speak to someone you alter his brain physically. When someone is sad, it is easier to give him a reason not to be sad instead of opening his brain and cutting through it. | ||
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Rassy
Netherlands2308 Posts
Because they are the only known processes wich maybe could go ahead and in the past of the current time . Everything big goes forward in time at a fixed speed, even objects influenced by relativity go forward in time at the same speed as other objects,as we can still see them and objects with a slower time dont disapear in the past. its only their internal clock wich runs at a lower speed. I do realise that this all sounds verry vague but i have come to this hypothesis based on the difference between animals and humans, animals can not look ahead or back in time, nor can computers. Even animals wich seem to look ahead in time, like animals making a food stock for the winter only do so because they are conditioned to do so. They have no concept of the future and what lies ahead. The human brain can look (far) into the future and into the past and i am convinced that this is one of the origins of our self consiousness. I picture it something like this: Our brain is at a specific time in a specific state, much like a computer is in a certain state at anny given time. The brain then can go to a new specific state wich lies probably verry shortly in the future, while the whole body stays in the current time. From this moment just ahead of us, our brain can then look back at itself in the state it is at the current time, hereby becoming aware of itself. I imagine consciousness coming from our brain going shortly into the future and then back at probably a verry fast frequency. Hope this does not sound to vague lol. I can not explain it further as i have not given this more thought as this is for me a more or less satisfying explanation of one of the manny things i try to understand, maybe i should give it a bit more thought and try expand and refine this concept but there are so manny other things that i still try to understand, not to mention that i am lazy lol. So i hope that more knowledgeable people who have made their profession of this, or some students here will take this idea and start working on it, i do think it is a promising concept. Nothing i read from knowledgeable people like daniel dennet can fully explain self consciousness for me, i do not believe that it is a byproduct and simply the result of a huge army of idiots saying yes and no. The question is:who is the observer, daniel dannet argues there is no need for an observer and that it is all an ilusion, i think he says this because he has no satisfying answer and every observer would introduce a new observer. My answer would be, the observer is yourself from a moment just in the future. Hope this makes it a bit more clear (lol) | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On July 03 2013 17:47 DertoQq wrote: Because a psychological treatment is technically a physical treatment. Every time you speak to someone you alter his brain physically. When someone is sad, it is easier to give him a reason not to be sad instead of opening his brain and cutting through it. To add on that, you can think of psychology as a higher level of abstraction to neurology+physics. It is comparable to an algorithm being a higher level of abstraction to computer hardware. When you modify the algorithm you are still making physical changes, eg by moving charge in a semiconductor. We simply choose to use a higher level of abstraction because thinking about it on a physical scale is needlessly detail oriented, and therefore inconvenient (can be basically be said for pretty much any hard science being used because thinking of things from the perspective of pure physics is needlessly complicated). Psychology is just the algorithmic level of abstraction of thinking about the operation of our brain (debatably, obviously many people believe there is more to the mind/psyche than just the brain). And is therefore not inconsistent with a purely physicalist view of the mind. To make another analogy, it is like saying chemistry is is not inconsistent with a purely physical world. Having to resort to chemistry is an admission that looking at things from a purely physics standpoint is at times needlessly complicated and that a higher level of abstraction is convenient, not an admission that there are factors outside physics that are required to explain it. my general/current take on stuff: one can not control the reaction but he can control the action. laws of the universe/physics/chemistry/biology control the reaction, free will controls the action. The problem is that noone debates the part where you can take action. The question has always been whether the decision to take the action is itself a reaction to physical phenomena, or whether there is something outside of physics that goes into that process. Ultimately, it is a philosophical question. Science only deals with the physical, since the physical world (and it's higher level abstractions) are the only parts compatible with the scientific method. Ultimately science only has methods to measure physical things, and complex interactions of of phenomena that are at root based on purely physical things. It is by definition incapable of dealing with those things outside a purely physical world view. This is why a physicalist view of the world is so popular, science provides conclusions, but is only compatible with the physicalist view. Since anything not physical can't be measured, and anything that can be measured becomes by definition physical. You can debate things outside of a physicalist world view with philosophy or what not, but ultimately people want conclusions and resolutions, and therefore fall back to science, and inevitably this results in a physicalist explanation. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
On July 03 2013 17:47 DertoQq wrote: Because a psychological treatment is technically a physical treatment. Every time you speak to someone you alter his brain physically. When someone is sad, it is easier to give him a reason not to be sad instead of opening his brain and cutting through it. then, if our thoughts/reason can affect the physical world why would it be limited to only our physical body?. why our thoughts couldn't affect everything else in the material world? | ||
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DertoQq
France906 Posts
On July 03 2013 18:12 xM(Z wrote: then, if our thoughts/reason can affect the physical world why would it be limited to only our physical body?. why our thoughts couldn't affect everything else in the material world? Your brain is translating your "thoughts" (which is something physical in your brain, just like your memories etc..) into a language (a level of abstraction of the information higher than your "thoughts"). It can be speaking, typing, writing or any other actions. With that you can affect everything else in the "material world" (you are affecting me right now). Note that the word thoughts is probably misleading, because it's definition is more an abstract concept than anything else. but please, just read the post of doubleupgradeobbies! above, it is much more detailed. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
On July 03 2013 18:42 DertoQq wrote: Your brain is translating your "thoughts" (which is something physical in your brain, just like your memories etc..) into a language (a level of abstraction of the information higher than your "thoughts"). It can be speaking, typing, writing or any other actions. With that you can affect everything else in the "material world" (you are affecting me right now). Note that the word thoughts is probably misleading, because it's definition is more an abstract concept than anything else. so skipping over a few logical inductions, you and doubleupgradeobbies! are saying that we all are physical variations of a quantum universe, right? (since your physicality and mine are exactly the same at atomic level, yet those same atoms give rise to different thoughts, the difference could only be explained via quantum theory, right?) | ||
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snejja
Russian Federation1 Post
On July 03 2013 18:12 xM(Z wrote: then, if our thoughts/reason can affect the physical world why would it be limited to only our physical body?. why our thoughts couldn't affect everything else in the material world? because weak electric impulses and small amount of chemicals, confined in a biologically armored head have very little possibility to affect anything beyond brain itself and connected to brain muscles/organs. they could affect EEG, though - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain–computer_interfaces | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On July 03 2013 18:57 xM(Z wrote: so skipping over a few logical inductions, you and doubleupgradeobbies! are saying that we all are physical variations of a quantum universe, right? (since your physicality and mine are exactly the same at atomic level, yet those same atoms give rise to different thoughts, the difference could only be explained via quantum theory, right?) Not at all. Again, think of a computer. You and I can sit with identical computers, but mine can be running a different program than yours. We can run the same program and get different results, because I have different data in memory. Same is true with the brain, you having a different emotion about an event doesn't have to come from some quantum mechanics, it's enough that you have different memories and experiences saved in your brain which the event gets associated with. | ||
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