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>Consciousness appears to exist outside of the physical world, in that we can describe a physical process entirely without invoking consciousness. Only in the
by Tenoke 7y ago
>Consciousness appears to exist outside of the physical world, in that we can describe a physical process entirely without invoking consciousness.
Only in the same ways that e.g. emotions exist 'outside of the physical world' and we are doing some work with those (e.g. we know more about the effects of hormones on them now).
I completely disagree that this is unstudiable or 'behind the veil'. We can create beings with consciousness (babies) using a purely physical process, of course there is some way to learn more.
Personally, I assume the main problem is (as it so often happens) that 'consciousness' is too loosely defined and explaining it will be easier with more strict definitions and a deeper understanding of the brain and body.
- corporate_shi11 7y agoSo what is qualia, or the experience of conscious beings?
- Tenoke 7y agoI'm not saying we have an answer today, just that an answer is reachable. I can give you my currently favourite theories of course, but they are beside the point.
- protonfish 7y agoQualia is not a scientific concept and really needs to be dismissed. (By definition it cannot be measured or observed.) I doubt you agree, but any study of consciousness that has a chance of succeeding will need to be extremely rigorous. I believe that an explanation of consciousness - much like the theory of evolution - will be both very simple and very unpopular.
- Jedi72 7y ago"Consciousness is god experiencing their creation, through themself" Let the downvotes rolll.....
- JamOnItMahn 7y agoIt's easy to downvote, but seriously, any trip down this line of thought can easily converge on topics which overlap many religions.
- corporate_shi11 7y ago>"Qualia is not a scientific concept" That is true. >"And really needs to be dismissed" I would agree with you if it weren't for these darn images and sounds and thoughts that flood my mind every time I wake up from the un-consciousness of sleep. It seems to me that you're recognizing the impossibility of scientific study of qualia itself (rather than correlates of it) but you are then taking the radical step of dismissing it simply because it cannot be studied scientifically. That's where we differ.
- cr0sh 7y ago> every time I wake up from the un-consciousness of sleep. Do you not dream when you sleep (I mean, when you enter REM state)? I know there are people who don't - but most of us I believe do dream (and some of us can become "conscious" of being in the dream state, while continuing to dream - aka, so-called "lucid dreaming"). I'm not a researcher or anything in regards to consciousness - but I wonder if there is anything that study of people who dream vs those who don't can tell us about it?
- Chathamization 7y agoThe non-materialist argument is similar to creationist critiques of evolution. Scientists who study these things see a material explanation, but because these are enormously complex emergent properties they don't know the exact details. Critics then use a god of the gaps argument, saying that if a material explanation can't explain everything right now then a supernatural explanation (which which explains far less and runs counter to available evidence) should be favored. Behind both arguments lie an unease that the scientific approach knocks humans off their pedestal and makes them seem like everything else. It's not surprising that the only neuroscientist in the article is arguing for a materialist approach.
- corporate_shi11 7y agoI think you miss the point of the hard problem of consciousness. No one is capable of offering any physical sort of coherent explanation for the experience of consciousness. There is no process in the brain that, if discovered, would lead to an "aha!" moment about the source of qualia. We could understand the physical law governing every single atom in the brain and simulate it with the best achievable accuracy and still not understand anything more about the emergence of qualia than we do now. Similarly, there is no coherent metaphysical or mystical explanation for consciousness. Such an explanation would have to invoke some interaction between a non physical world and the physical world, which is an absurd notion for multiple reasons. I believe consciousness for humans is the equivalent of differential equations for amoeba. It is beyond our comprehension.
- Pete_D 7y agoI don't think trying to solve it materialistically will work, because the moment we come up with an empirical measurement of consciousness, David Chalmers will crash in through a window and say "ah, now consider a hypothetical class of people for whom this measurement indicates consciousness, but who do not in fact experience qualia - we could call these qualia zombies, or Q-zombies for short." Maybe the correct response is just to dismiss zombie theories as incoherent. But people are already doing that - I doubt collecting more physical evidence and improving our understanding of cognition will strengthen the case against P-zombies, even though it'd be useful knowledge for other reasons.