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A materialistic approach to explaining consciousness is necessary, since consciousness can be affected by physical changes to the brain, which implies that cons

A materialistic approach to explaining consciousness is necessary, since consciousness can be affected by physical changes to the brain, which implies that consciousness is fundamentally a physical process.

JamOnItMahn 7y ago
I'm of two minds about this (ha). One nods and says "yup, 'nuff said". The other thinks about a radio. A sufficiently complex radio can do amazing things... provided it has a signal. It can make music sounds boring and flat, or it can bring it to life (via an equalizer function). But if you mess with the antenna in any way, or, for that matter, disconnect it fully, the entire experience can be altered in significant ways. So, yeah, part of the physical matter was changed. But the original signal, already produced by some other process, "somewhere else", was never changed. I'm not necessarily advocating that our consciousness is generated somewhere else. It just makes me wonder (ha).
- JamOnItMahn 7y ago
  After having read my own comment again I felt like some clarification is necessary, even if just for myself. In my little thought experiment the radio itself was never physically changed, just the antenna. The antenna, another physical component, is just a sensing peripheral. But what does the radio process if its front end is dead? Think about Helen Keller for a minute. What kinds of sensing signals did she process? Vastly different than most of us. Yet she was still able to arrive at a roughly equivalent understanding of our overall shared experience. I say roughly equivalent because I have no idea what her internal state looks, or functions, like. I think about this often. I myself have a drive to try to electronically capture, and share, knowledge. But I play a little thought experiment in my head often... what if all your senses were cut off and you were locked in. Just you inside your head, nothing else. Forgetting important factors like if you were just born or right now in your current state... what if a dry, textual, fact were somehow delivered straight to your consciousness. Something you know nothing about, nor have ever experienced before in any setting. Let's say you've never experienced snow, you don't even know what it is. Maybe you've only ever lived in a hot desert your whole life and have never experienced freezing cold, in any form (no AC, ice, etc...). So a textual description of snow is made available to your (locked-in) consciousness. You have no idea how to process that fact into an experience. I like to think of it like IBM's Watson. It has access to a wealth of facts. But it has nearly zero experience with any of them. You can not experience that dry textual fact without previous experience. In this case precipitation and/or freezing cold. I don't even think it's about context so much. Let's say you are provided with context about precipitation and freezing cold. It still doesn't provide the experience, memory, of either. You're consciousness is missing the essential primitives necessary for understanding the experience. I guess for me it's always come back to the experience. Watson can provide information. But it can't truly communicate a shared experience with that information to another consciousness, regardless of whether or not that other consciousness has experienced those primitives or not. More simply, think about the first Matrix movie (insert groan here). Trinity downloads how to fly a helicopter. Let's say I want to invent that type of technology. My first attempt may be to create a system where you simply attach a cell phone to your head and have a way of conveying textual facts to your eyes. Dry facts about flying a helicopter. One field test is done with someone who has zero experience with flying at all. It will likely fail to produce the intended result. Sure it may provide a liftoff. But you will not be an instant stunt flyer. So iteration number two involves simple non-interactive, non-motion graphics. Another field test is done, on a new subject with no experience. Maybe somewhat better results, but still not the intended outcome. Next iteration involves videos. Another field test, again only somewhat improved results. You can iterate all the way through a short interactive simulation. The results will be better, for sure. But until you've had actual time in the field before-hand, i.e., experience, you just don't know the experience. Read the definition of gravity. Huh!? Drop an apple, oh! So what would it take here? Implanted memories? Along with all the necessary primitives??? I don't have the answer.
yohsii 7y ago
fundamentally physical? consciousness is fundamental and eternal, no beginning no end. forms change and are not fundamental at all.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  > consciousness is fundamental and eternal, no beginning no end What makes you think that? It seems to begin at some point after conception, and end upon death. I've yet to see evidence indicating otherwise.
  - yohsii 7y ago
    you were conscious before your life and you will be after it. it may be a different type of consciousness and not attached to your ego or current identity, but you will always have consciousness. if you are a materialist, you will never be able to explain the origin of anything as there will always be a level before. consciousness needs no beginning, it has always been and will always be, your true identity is God and you (not your current identity/ego) are immortal.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      You're not describing consciousness - you're trying to hide spirituality and religion in scientific terms, and making utterly unverifiable claims from nothing. This is what you'd like, but not what you have any evidence for. If you're going to make that sort of claim, call it spirit, or soul, but consciousness is a clearly defined concept that you have to actually break the definition of in order to make these claims - how can we have consciousness that we aren't aware of, when that is literally what consciousness is, awareness?
      - yohsii 7y ago
        you can become aware of it, just meditate or consume 5meo-dmt. preferably do both. personally i drank copious amounts of ayahuasca and meditated. i also trained at a buddhist campus and meditated 16 hours a day for a year. you can become aware of these things but don't take my word for it, do the self inquiry yourself, all of the answers are within.
abnry 7y ago
Obviously a materialistic approach is necessary, but to claim it _only_ requires a materialistic approach is different.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Is there any reason to think that a materialistic approach is somehow not also sufficient to explain consciousness?
  - abnry 7y ago
    Let me turn that question on its head and ask you why should it be sufficient? Just because it interacts with matter doesn't mean we default to assuming a materialistic approach is sufficient. I can't get bogged down with arguing why it seems obvious to me that it isn't sufficient. As I wrote earlier, it still boggles my mind that people think otherwise.
    - hackinthebochs 7y ago
      > why should it be sufficient? Just because it interacts with matter... Because causal closure is a feature of our physical theories that have immense explanatory and predictive power. This is good reason to think that anything that interacts with the physical is also physical or supervenes on the physical.
      - abnry 7y ago
        Given the lack of explanatory power physical theories have so far provided for consciousness, I think it is fair on that alone to be agnostic about the claim consciousness is purely explained by physical attributes.
        hackinthebochs 7y ago
        I think that's fair. But in terms of where a potential investigator should focus their attention, i.e. attempt to develop a physicalist theory or explore other options, I think the totality of evidence points towards a physicalist theory being more likely.

JamOnItMahn 7y ago

I'm of two minds about this (ha). One nods and says "yup, 'nuff said". The other thinks about a radio. A sufficiently complex radio can do amazing things... provided it has a signal. It can make music sounds boring and flat, or it can bring it to life (via an equalizer function). But if you mess with the antenna in any way, or, for that matter, disconnect it fully, the entire experience can be altered in significant ways. So, yeah, part of the physical matter was changed. But the original signal, already produced by some other process, "somewhere else", was never changed. I'm not necessarily advocating that our consciousness is generated somewhere else. It just makes me wonder (ha).

JamOnItMahn 7y ago
After having read my own comment again I felt like some clarification is necessary, even if just for myself. In my little thought experiment the radio itself was never physically changed, just the antenna. The antenna, another physical component, is just a sensing peripheral. But what does the radio process if its front end is dead? Think about Helen Keller for a minute. What kinds of sensing signals did she process? Vastly different than most of us. Yet she was still able to arrive at a roughly equivalent understanding of our overall shared experience. I say roughly equivalent because I have no idea what her internal state looks, or functions, like. I think about this often. I myself have a drive to try to electronically capture, and share, knowledge. But I play a little thought experiment in my head often... what if all your senses were cut off and you were locked in. Just you inside your head, nothing else. Forgetting important factors like if you were just born or right now in your current state... what if a dry, textual, fact were somehow delivered straight to your consciousness. Something you know nothing about, nor have ever experienced before in any setting. Let's say you've never experienced snow, you don't even know what it is. Maybe you've only ever lived in a hot desert your whole life and have never experienced freezing cold, in any form (no AC, ice, etc...). So a textual description of snow is made available to your (locked-in) consciousness. You have no idea how to process that fact into an experience. I like to think of it like IBM's Watson. It has access to a wealth of facts. But it has nearly zero experience with any of them. You can not experience that dry textual fact without previous experience. In this case precipitation and/or freezing cold. I don't even think it's about context so much. Let's say you are provided with context about precipitation and freezing cold. It still doesn't provide the experience, memory, of either. You're consciousness is missing the essential primitives necessary for understanding the experience. I guess for me it's always come back to the experience. Watson can provide information. But it can't truly communicate a shared experience with that information to another consciousness, regardless of whether or not that other consciousness has experienced those primitives or not. More simply, think about the first Matrix movie (insert groan here). Trinity downloads how to fly a helicopter. Let's say I want to invent that type of technology. My first attempt may be to create a system where you simply attach a cell phone to your head and have a way of conveying textual facts to your eyes. Dry facts about flying a helicopter. One field test is done with someone who has zero experience with flying at all. It will likely fail to produce the intended result. Sure it may provide a liftoff. But you will not be an instant stunt flyer. So iteration number two involves simple non-interactive, non-motion graphics. Another field test is done, on a new subject with no experience. Maybe somewhat better results, but still not the intended outcome. Next iteration involves videos. Another field test, again only somewhat improved results. You can iterate all the way through a short interactive simulation. The results will be better, for sure. But until you've had actual time in the field before-hand, i.e., experience, you just don't know the experience. Read the definition of gravity. Huh!? Drop an apple, oh! So what would it take here? Implanted memories? Along with all the necessary primitives??? I don't have the answer.

yohsii 7y ago

fundamentally physical? consciousness is fundamental and eternal, no beginning no end. forms change and are not fundamental at all.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
> consciousness is fundamental and eternal, no beginning no end What makes you think that? It seems to begin at some point after conception, and end upon death. I've yet to see evidence indicating otherwise.
- yohsii 7y ago
  you were conscious before your life and you will be after it. it may be a different type of consciousness and not attached to your ego or current identity, but you will always have consciousness. if you are a materialist, you will never be able to explain the origin of anything as there will always be a level before. consciousness needs no beginning, it has always been and will always be, your true identity is God and you (not your current identity/ego) are immortal.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    You're not describing consciousness - you're trying to hide spirituality and religion in scientific terms, and making utterly unverifiable claims from nothing. This is what you'd like, but not what you have any evidence for. If you're going to make that sort of claim, call it spirit, or soul, but consciousness is a clearly defined concept that you have to actually break the definition of in order to make these claims - how can we have consciousness that we aren't aware of, when that is literally what consciousness is, awareness?
    - yohsii 7y ago
      you can become aware of it, just meditate or consume 5meo-dmt. preferably do both. personally i drank copious amounts of ayahuasca and meditated. i also trained at a buddhist campus and meditated 16 hours a day for a year. you can become aware of these things but don't take my word for it, do the self inquiry yourself, all of the answers are within.

abnry 7y ago

Obviously a materialistic approach is necessary, but to claim it _only_ requires a materialistic approach is different.

toasterlovin 7y ago
Is there any reason to think that a materialistic approach is somehow not also sufficient to explain consciousness?
- abnry 7y ago
  Let me turn that question on its head and ask you why should it be sufficient? Just because it interacts with matter doesn't mean we default to assuming a materialistic approach is sufficient. I can't get bogged down with arguing why it seems obvious to me that it isn't sufficient. As I wrote earlier, it still boggles my mind that people think otherwise.
  - hackinthebochs 7y ago
    > why should it be sufficient? Just because it interacts with matter... Because causal closure is a feature of our physical theories that have immense explanatory and predictive power. This is good reason to think that anything that interacts with the physical is also physical or supervenes on the physical.
    - abnry 7y ago
      Given the lack of explanatory power physical theories have so far provided for consciousness, I think it is fair on that alone to be agnostic about the claim consciousness is purely explained by physical attributes.
      - hackinthebochs 7y ago
        I think that's fair. But in terms of where a potential investigator should focus their attention, i.e. attempt to develop a physicalist theory or explore other options, I think the totality of evidence points towards a physicalist theory being more likely.