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Neuroscience hasn't been able to produce a single theory on the origin of consciousness, unless one accepts "it emerges from neural activity" as an explanation.

Neuroscience hasn't been able to produce a single theory on the origin of consciousness, unless one accepts "it emerges from neural activity" as an explanation. Consciousness appears to be the ultimate mystery. There is something very fundamental about it that we don't understand at all. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, especially the type of people that would like to turn Science into a religion. We just don't know, and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise.

blueprint 13y ago
Consciousness is a mystery only to those that cannot define what it is. What is the origin of awareness itself? It is the very activities one is aware of. The activities produce energy which we call consciousness. The dimension that the consciousness can see is determined by the quality of the very activities. Consciousness is thus not solely generated by neurological activities. Before denying this because of your first impression, please confirm if what I'm saying is true or not, and whether it is confirmed by all evidence or if there is in fact any evidence which contradicts it. What I've said here doesn't come from my thoughts or ideas.
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  I tend to agree with the general tone of what you're saying, but have a problem with "The activities produce energy which we call consciousness". Either you are using the word "energy" in the regular sense or as a metaphor for something else. If it's the former, we're missing some physics. if it's the latter, you're still sweeping the problem under the rug.
  - blueprint 13y ago
    I don't think the physics is missing - it should be all there, according to my confirmation. There are numerous examples around us. Waves propagate themselves owing to the very energy inside of them. Gravity is energy that is produced by the activities of everything in the world - the stress energy tensor says the same thing, but people don't seem to really recognize what it means.
    - jimmaswell 13y ago
      well, gravity is actually distortions, curves in spacetime, not something carrying energy, as far as I know.
      - Xcelerate 13y ago
        Anything that has energy (and so far, this seems to be everything that exists), creates a gravitational field. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  I'll be aware even if you remove all activities and all senses from me. For some time, anyway - then my mind will likely wander.
  - justinpombrio 13y ago
    One of the things we can be aware of is our own thoughts. If you count that as another "sense", is your statement still true? (Any neuroscientists out there: is it gibberish to consider awareness of your own thinking as a type of sensory input?)
  - vonsydov 13y ago
    Try a sensory deprivation chamber ;)
- gems 13y ago
  I don't understand what you're saying. Pretend like I am idiot and explain it to me in simple terms. 1. Can you define consciousness? Or is consciousness = awareness? Is that what you meant? 2. You ask "What is the origin of awareness itself?". I really don't understand this question. What is awareness? I can't even comprehend what you mean when you ask "what is the origin of [it]?". Colloquially, physical things have "origins", which is to say that at some point some physical thing was "created" or "crafted". My intuitive idea of awareness is that it is an experience, it's not something physical.
  - blueprint 13y ago
    1. Yes, consciousness is just awareness. Your mind is where all your thoughts and judgements are. Your body acts from your mind and your mind is generated by your consciousness. 2. The 'origin' of a phenomenon refers the causes that generate the phenomenon. In math, as well as philosophy, the question is the origin of the answer. I'll give you an example. Where does the light from a lightbulb come from? Does it come from the bulb or does it come from the electricity itself? The bulb is simply the object which converts the electrical energy to EM radiation, not the origin of the light itself. Where does the electricity come from? The activities of the generator. So, mind is like light and consciousness is like an electrical wave. 3. Awareness of a fact means that you see a fact. It means that you receive the fact as it is. The dichotomy between experiential and physical things is illusory. It's simply that you experience the physical things from your own perspective, which is formulated by everything that has happened to you and everything you have done in the past - all of which were originated by activities as well. If we compare to a physical object, your consciousness is like the driver of a car (where your body is like the car), and when you are driving a car you can see through the windshield and you can feel feedback through the steering wheel. Hope this makes sense. This is not so easy to understand at first listen so please feel free to ask me continuous questions as I can help you to make your understanding more concrete.
    - gems 13y ago
      As far as I know, light is defined precisely in physics. The light from a light bulb comes from electricity traveling through a highly resistive wire. The particle interactions generate photons. "The bulb is simply the object which converts the electrical energy to EM radiation, not the origin of the light itself." If you were to ignore the particle interactions, then yes, the light originates from the light bulb. It certainly does not originate from electricity. Where the electricity comes from is irrelevant. "It means that you receive the fact as it is." I have no idea what that means. "The dichotomy between experiential and physical things is illusory. It's simply that you experience the physical things from your own perspective," Oh, I know. I still don't think you defined awareness precisely enough.
tokipin 13y ago
on the other end, i think it's also weird to say that we will never understand consciousness. frankly i think our science just isn't very advanced at the moment. particularly lacking is our understanding of anything that isn't linear
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  I didn't say we will never understand it, although it is certainly a possibility. One might argue that Godel's incompleteness theorems suggest a reality where some things are unknowable.
  - stianan 13y ago
    I appreciate your point, but I think invoking Gödel's incompletness theorems in this context is taking them far out of their scope.
    - TelmoMenezes 13y ago
      I guess that depends on what you believe Mathematics to be. Is it a representation of reality itself (maybe the ultimate reality) or is it just a human construct? I don't know.
      - stianan 13y ago
        It's a theorem that starts off with some assumptions, and gives you some implications. It does not say anything as general as "some things are unknowable in mathematics".
dvanduzer 13y ago
It's perfectly reasonable to define consciousness as "that which emerges from neural activity" if your model is able to describe that emergent behavior.[0] This is not the same as describing what it "feels like" from the inside. From your comment, I infer that you are rejecting the explanatory powers of neuroscience because you are expecting it to speak to the "feels like" question. [0] http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  I disagree, it is only possible at the moment to define _intelligence_ as "that which emerges from neural activity". There is not evidence whatsoever that consciousness emerges from neural activity. This is just a type of religious dogma in disguise. Think about it. Thanks for the link.
  - seiji 13y ago
    There is not evidence whatsoever that consciousness emerges from neural activity. None? Ever? Consciousness could just be a free floating quantum mechanical genie attached to my back? Hogcock. We are only brains. If your brain gets squished, you don't really care because you'll cease to exist in this light cone.
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      That's what your player character in an action video game "thinks". If I get killed, I won't care anymore, because there would be nothing left of me. Guess what, his consciousness is you and you will close the game and walk away. In a consciousness dimension your character can't even imagine. This is absolutely unrooted parable, except that consciousness remains a mystery. What does it hide? We don't know.
      - seiji 13y ago
        Video game characters aren't consciously autonomous though. There's always the reductive argument of "Well, we could be running in a computer simulation and when you die here you're perfectly recreated in another simulated universe." But, we're not.
simonster 13y ago
Well, there is Gulio Tononi's Information Integration Theory (http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.long http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.long, see also Christof Koch's summary in SciAm at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-theory-of-consciousness http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-theory-of...). Personally, I don't find it particularly compelling at present, since the claims made are much stronger than the evidence to support them and I'm not entirely sure I believe the assumptions necessary to test the theory empirically. But it's out there.
robbiep 13y ago
And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'? really, it is quite an adequate solution for a species with our current level of philosophical and scientific understanding. That doesn't mean it is right, and doesn't discount potentially other options such as something that, despite my own strong scientific background, I have a fondness for through buddhism and meditation - and which is mentioned in the original article - that there is just one consciousness we all share in. despite my fondness for this, the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of a complex neural network is supported by the evidence that shows that damage to the brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness. Therefore, the idea that consciousness in LIFE doesn't require the brain, or vice versa, is simply mysticism and denying the truth that we all experience I agree with you that consciousness is quite a mystery, but in terms of the ultimate mystery I feel very strongly that the question of life, consciousness and why there is something instead of nothing is a question that goes together and that they are all intricately linked
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  I am aware of this line of reasoning, but it contains a subtle problem: there is no way to measure consciousness. We assume a correlation between consciousness and human-like intelligent behaviour. We assume that we are unconscious when in deep sleep, for example, but we have no way of knowing for sure. It could just be that we are not recording any memories for later reference. Long story short, no, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that damage to brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness -- only of intelligent behaviour. It turns out that it is precisely the claim that consciousness emerges from the brain -- given our present state of knowledge -- that is mysticism. The only possible scientific position here is to say "I don't know".
  - quantumpotato_ 13y ago
    Consciousness cant' define itself? Incompleteness theorem!
  - robbiep 13y ago
    That's an interesting way of looking at it. Some problems. Why is there any reason to assume that intelligent behaviour and consciousness aren't the same thing? If a vegetative human with next to no brain function is going to be considered conscious for all intents and purposes according to what you have written above, then you are suggesting that consciousness resides somewhere else, perhaps as an artefact of 'living'. In my more deeply reflective moments I've sometimes thought that maybe even very simpl chemical reactions, such as the conversion of carbon compounds to carbon dioxide and water, may be a form of consciousness - basically, consciousness exists where there are energy gradients and is thus deeply tied with entropy and thermodynamics. So, that could be true, but that is different from the meaning of being human, and of having a conscious existence that is rich with relationships with friends, activities and memories, plans etc... Consciousness without memory would not be productive in our present incantations as humans- a conscious being without memory would have no language, no concept of how to act, or why, so if such an entity exists, or exists when we sleep, could you really call it conscious? What wouldn't be observing? What would it be comparing and contrasting its experiences to? I said before that, for a species of our current level of philosophical and scientific understanding, the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of neuronal activity seems appropriate, even if it isn't complete. It is not true that this is mysticism, because in order to suggest they consciousness doesn't correlate with intelligent behaviour, you are actively claiming things that we don't know and have no proof of in order to suggest that consciousness is something other, and intelligence a subset of. As a species we generally agree that consciousness is a property possessed by things with neural networks, and the more complex the neural network, corrected for body size, the more advanced the level of consciousness and level of self awareness. So intelligence is basically included in this definition, and although we can't really measure either well, we do know that it is the activity of neurons that leads to one, and despite the oft-pointed out incompleteness of this layer of definitions, it is both supported by available evidence and not so much of a problem, given that these are enormous questions that civilisation shall likely struggle to fully understand for as long as there are humans about to think on it
paganel 13y ago
> There is something very fundamental about it that we don't understand at all. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, especially the type of people that would like to turn Science into a religion. I could be wrong, but as an European my understanding is that there are people in the States who actually believe in non-science things like Adam and Eve and all that, so that when you begin to say that maybe Science doesn't or can't have all the answers (for example just the other day I was thinking "hey, has anyone proved that mathematical induction is really intellectually honest? or was Hume actually right and it's all make-believe?") you're immediately tagged as "a lunatic guy who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old" by Science-loving American redditors (HN is a little bit more forgiving), doesn't matter that I may be an agnostic and that I'm amazed that things like "God" are brought into a discussion which tries to make sense of the things around us. It would also help if people would have a little more knowledge of the history of Science itself, this way they'd know about guys like La Mettrie or the French positivists who lived in the 19th century, meaning this discussion has happened many times before.
- saym 13y ago
  There are people that believe in 'non-science things' on every continent. I don't see how providing antagonizing labels based on nationality helps your argument at all.
  - wslh 13y ago
    > I don't see how providing antagonizing labels based on nationality helps your argument at all. I completely understand what paganel said: nationality and culture play an important role here. There are cultures or subcultures that accept that we can be completely wrong in our assertions (are we just dreaming?), or they are based on mysticism, or they are relativists, or they are scientific. There are prejudices against you in the scientific environment if you have doubts about things like God or consciousness.
- Jimmy 13y ago
  >(for example just the other day I was thinking "hey, has anyone proved that mathematical induction is really intellectually honest? or was Hume actually right and it's all make-believe?") Mathematical induction is different from the type of induction that Hume was concerned with, and it's just as sound as any other method of mathematical proof.
aquaroris 13y ago
I'm thinking that consciousness, as it stands right now, is associated with a lot of things that should and ought to be reduced to mere sensation. Consciousness is associated with thought, emotion, and sensation. Yet as neuroscience progresses, I think we will eventually functionalize thought, emotion, and sensation as biological processes. Some may argue that our mental processes are fundamentally differently perceived from our external senses. But as a human being, we have internal sensations as well. We can feel internal pain and stomachaches. These have a fundamentally different sensation from the sensations that can be externally induced in us. Extrapolating further, we can say that thinking and feeling and other mental activity are mere sensations of the consciousness induced by the brain. Before physics, there was a large role for divinities in the world. Gods and the Abrahamic God ruled Nature and Fortune, the parts of the world that we do not understand. But as human beings gained mastery and confidence over the external world, the domain of divinities shrank and shrank. We now attribute causes of phenomena to the natural world, rather than divinities; divinities used to be the natural law of the universe, today they have to be content with the supernatural. Regardless of the philosophical justifications of consciousness, I see it going the way of divinities. The popularity of consciousness will wane as mental functions and mental states and cognition are understood. Societies will begin to use neuroscientific explanations to justify perception and behavior that provide actionable innovation and correction instead of attributing them to black-box consciousness. When that happens, the idea of consciousness will, I think, seem as absurd as divinities.
- JackFr 13y ago
  "Yet as neuroscience progresses, I think we will eventually functionalize thought, emotion, and sensation as biological processes." That, my friend, is your little divinity. Keep the faith!
  - waveman2 13y ago
    It is a reasonable position I think. Given the progress with understanding many other things, it is reasonable to expect progress here - bearing in mind the incredible complexity of the brain. If philosophers were going to solve this problem they would have done so already, given that they have been at it for 2500 years or so with no real signs of progress. Science on the other hand has made enormous progress in understanding living things. Recall for example that only 100 years ago many or most people adhered to "vitalism" ie the view that living things contained an "elan vital" which distinguished them from inorganic matter. Enter biochemistry.
rickhanlonii 13y ago
I don't see anyone pretending that we know consciousness. However, we are in the process of understanding, and there has yet to be any proof or indication that that process will end before we conquer that knowledge. Given what we already know, and that we're in the infancy of real research in this area, there's every reason to believe that we're going to solve this mystery in the near future. And it's intellectually cowardice to pretend otherwise.
sveme 13y ago
There are actually highly interesting developments at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience, one of them being the works of Thomas Metzinger (see, e.g., http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-Model-Subjectivity/dp/0262633086 http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-Model-Subjectivity/d...). It's simply wrong to state that research into consciousness is at the state of "it emerges from neural activity".
sjs1234 13y ago
Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist. He has a theory of consciousness explained in a book called the feeling of what happens. The somatic marker hypothesis is a bit more than 'it emerges from neural activity' At the very minimum the book debunks a good number of otherwise plausible sounding theories. Damasio in that book also does a fantastic job of removing any mysticism from the exercise ... He's trying to explain what each of us recognize as conciousness in other animals. E.g. Many people think their dogs are concious without also holding mystical beliefs.

blueprint 13y ago

Consciousness is a mystery only to those that cannot define what it is. What is the origin of awareness itself? It is the very activities one is aware of. The activities produce energy which we call consciousness. The dimension that the consciousness can see is determined by the quality of the very activities. Consciousness is thus not solely generated by neurological activities. Before denying this because of your first impression, please confirm if what I'm saying is true or not, and whether it is confirmed by all evidence or if there is in fact any evidence which contradicts it. What I've said here doesn't come from my thoughts or ideas.

TelmoMenezes 13y ago
I tend to agree with the general tone of what you're saying, but have a problem with "The activities produce energy which we call consciousness". Either you are using the word "energy" in the regular sense or as a metaphor for something else. If it's the former, we're missing some physics. if it's the latter, you're still sweeping the problem under the rug.
- blueprint 13y ago
  I don't think the physics is missing - it should be all there, according to my confirmation. There are numerous examples around us. Waves propagate themselves owing to the very energy inside of them. Gravity is energy that is produced by the activities of everything in the world - the stress energy tensor says the same thing, but people don't seem to really recognize what it means.
  - jimmaswell 13y ago
    well, gravity is actually distortions, curves in spacetime, not something carrying energy, as far as I know.
    - Xcelerate 13y ago
      Anything that has energy (and so far, this seems to be everything that exists), creates a gravitational field. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor
guard-of-terra 13y ago
I'll be aware even if you remove all activities and all senses from me. For some time, anyway - then my mind will likely wander.
- justinpombrio 13y ago
  One of the things we can be aware of is our own thoughts. If you count that as another "sense", is your statement still true? (Any neuroscientists out there: is it gibberish to consider awareness of your own thinking as a type of sensory input?)
- vonsydov 13y ago
  Try a sensory deprivation chamber ;)
gems 13y ago
I don't understand what you're saying. Pretend like I am idiot and explain it to me in simple terms. 1. Can you define consciousness? Or is consciousness = awareness? Is that what you meant? 2. You ask "What is the origin of awareness itself?". I really don't understand this question. What is awareness? I can't even comprehend what you mean when you ask "what is the origin of [it]?". Colloquially, physical things have "origins", which is to say that at some point some physical thing was "created" or "crafted". My intuitive idea of awareness is that it is an experience, it's not something physical.
- blueprint 13y ago
  1. Yes, consciousness is just awareness. Your mind is where all your thoughts and judgements are. Your body acts from your mind and your mind is generated by your consciousness. 2. The 'origin' of a phenomenon refers the causes that generate the phenomenon. In math, as well as philosophy, the question is the origin of the answer. I'll give you an example. Where does the light from a lightbulb come from? Does it come from the bulb or does it come from the electricity itself? The bulb is simply the object which converts the electrical energy to EM radiation, not the origin of the light itself. Where does the electricity come from? The activities of the generator. So, mind is like light and consciousness is like an electrical wave. 3. Awareness of a fact means that you see a fact. It means that you receive the fact as it is. The dichotomy between experiential and physical things is illusory. It's simply that you experience the physical things from your own perspective, which is formulated by everything that has happened to you and everything you have done in the past - all of which were originated by activities as well. If we compare to a physical object, your consciousness is like the driver of a car (where your body is like the car), and when you are driving a car you can see through the windshield and you can feel feedback through the steering wheel. Hope this makes sense. This is not so easy to understand at first listen so please feel free to ask me continuous questions as I can help you to make your understanding more concrete.
  - gems 13y ago
    As far as I know, light is defined precisely in physics. The light from a light bulb comes from electricity traveling through a highly resistive wire. The particle interactions generate photons. "The bulb is simply the object which converts the electrical energy to EM radiation, not the origin of the light itself." If you were to ignore the particle interactions, then yes, the light originates from the light bulb. It certainly does not originate from electricity. Where the electricity comes from is irrelevant. "It means that you receive the fact as it is." I have no idea what that means. "The dichotomy between experiential and physical things is illusory. It's simply that you experience the physical things from your own perspective," Oh, I know. I still don't think you defined awareness precisely enough.

tokipin 13y ago

on the other end, i think it's also weird to say that we will never understand consciousness. frankly i think our science just isn't very advanced at the moment. particularly lacking is our understanding of anything that isn't linear

TelmoMenezes 13y ago
I didn't say we will never understand it, although it is certainly a possibility. One might argue that Godel's incompleteness theorems suggest a reality where some things are unknowable.
- stianan 13y ago
  I appreciate your point, but I think invoking Gödel's incompletness theorems in this context is taking them far out of their scope.
  - TelmoMenezes 13y ago
    I guess that depends on what you believe Mathematics to be. Is it a representation of reality itself (maybe the ultimate reality) or is it just a human construct? I don't know.
    - stianan 13y ago
      It's a theorem that starts off with some assumptions, and gives you some implications. It does not say anything as general as "some things are unknowable in mathematics".

dvanduzer 13y ago

It's perfectly reasonable to define consciousness as "that which emerges from neural activity" if your model is able to describe that emergent behavior.[0] This is not the same as describing what it "feels like" from the inside. From your comment, I infer that you are rejecting the explanatory powers of neuroscience because you are expecting it to speak to the "feels like" question. [0] http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/

TelmoMenezes 13y ago
I disagree, it is only possible at the moment to define _intelligence_ as "that which emerges from neural activity". There is not evidence whatsoever that consciousness emerges from neural activity. This is just a type of religious dogma in disguise. Think about it. Thanks for the link.
- seiji 13y ago
  There is not evidence whatsoever that consciousness emerges from neural activity. None? Ever? Consciousness could just be a free floating quantum mechanical genie attached to my back? Hogcock. We are only brains. If your brain gets squished, you don't really care because you'll cease to exist in this light cone.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    That's what your player character in an action video game "thinks". If I get killed, I won't care anymore, because there would be nothing left of me. Guess what, his consciousness is you and you will close the game and walk away. In a consciousness dimension your character can't even imagine. This is absolutely unrooted parable, except that consciousness remains a mystery. What does it hide? We don't know.
    - seiji 13y ago
      Video game characters aren't consciously autonomous though. There's always the reductive argument of "Well, we could be running in a computer simulation and when you die here you're perfectly recreated in another simulated universe." But, we're not.

simonster 13y ago

Well, there is Gulio Tononi's Information Integration Theory (http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.long http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.long, see also Christof Koch's summary in SciAm at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-theory-of-consciousness http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-theory-of...). Personally, I don't find it particularly compelling at present, since the claims made are much stronger than the evidence to support them and I'm not entirely sure I believe the assumptions necessary to test the theory empirically. But it's out there.

robbiep 13y ago

And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'? really, it is quite an adequate solution for a species with our current level of philosophical and scientific understanding. That doesn't mean it is right, and doesn't discount potentially other options such as something that, despite my own strong scientific background, I have a fondness for through buddhism and meditation - and which is mentioned in the original article - that there is just one consciousness we all share in. despite my fondness for this, the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of a complex neural network is supported by the evidence that shows that damage to the brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness. Therefore, the idea that consciousness in LIFE doesn't require the brain, or vice versa, is simply mysticism and denying the truth that we all experience I agree with you that consciousness is quite a mystery, but in terms of the ultimate mystery I feel very strongly that the question of life, consciousness and why there is something instead of nothing is a question that goes together and that they are all intricately linked

TelmoMenezes 13y ago
I am aware of this line of reasoning, but it contains a subtle problem: there is no way to measure consciousness. We assume a correlation between consciousness and human-like intelligent behaviour. We assume that we are unconscious when in deep sleep, for example, but we have no way of knowing for sure. It could just be that we are not recording any memories for later reference. Long story short, no, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that damage to brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness -- only of intelligent behaviour. It turns out that it is precisely the claim that consciousness emerges from the brain -- given our present state of knowledge -- that is mysticism. The only possible scientific position here is to say "I don't know".
- quantumpotato_ 13y ago
  Consciousness cant' define itself? Incompleteness theorem!
- robbiep 13y ago
  That's an interesting way of looking at it. Some problems. Why is there any reason to assume that intelligent behaviour and consciousness aren't the same thing? If a vegetative human with next to no brain function is going to be considered conscious for all intents and purposes according to what you have written above, then you are suggesting that consciousness resides somewhere else, perhaps as an artefact of 'living'. In my more deeply reflective moments I've sometimes thought that maybe even very simpl chemical reactions, such as the conversion of carbon compounds to carbon dioxide and water, may be a form of consciousness - basically, consciousness exists where there are energy gradients and is thus deeply tied with entropy and thermodynamics. So, that could be true, but that is different from the meaning of being human, and of having a conscious existence that is rich with relationships with friends, activities and memories, plans etc... Consciousness without memory would not be productive in our present incantations as humans- a conscious being without memory would have no language, no concept of how to act, or why, so if such an entity exists, or exists when we sleep, could you really call it conscious? What wouldn't be observing? What would it be comparing and contrasting its experiences to? I said before that, for a species of our current level of philosophical and scientific understanding, the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of neuronal activity seems appropriate, even if it isn't complete. It is not true that this is mysticism, because in order to suggest they consciousness doesn't correlate with intelligent behaviour, you are actively claiming things that we don't know and have no proof of in order to suggest that consciousness is something other, and intelligence a subset of. As a species we generally agree that consciousness is a property possessed by things with neural networks, and the more complex the neural network, corrected for body size, the more advanced the level of consciousness and level of self awareness. So intelligence is basically included in this definition, and although we can't really measure either well, we do know that it is the activity of neurons that leads to one, and despite the oft-pointed out incompleteness of this layer of definitions, it is both supported by available evidence and not so much of a problem, given that these are enormous questions that civilisation shall likely struggle to fully understand for as long as there are humans about to think on it

paganel 13y ago

> There is something very fundamental about it that we don't understand at all. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, especially the type of people that would like to turn Science into a religion. I could be wrong, but as an European my understanding is that there are people in the States who actually believe in non-science things like Adam and Eve and all that, so that when you begin to say that maybe Science doesn't or can't have all the answers (for example just the other day I was thinking "hey, has anyone proved that mathematical induction is really intellectually honest? or was Hume actually right and it's all make-believe?") you're immediately tagged as "a lunatic guy who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old" by Science-loving American redditors (HN is a little bit more forgiving), doesn't matter that I may be an agnostic and that I'm amazed that things like "God" are brought into a discussion which tries to make sense of the things around us. It would also help if people would have a little more knowledge of the history of Science itself, this way they'd know about guys like La Mettrie or the French positivists who lived in the 19th century, meaning this discussion has happened many times before.

saym 13y ago
There are people that believe in 'non-science things' on every continent. I don't see how providing antagonizing labels based on nationality helps your argument at all.
- wslh 13y ago
  > I don't see how providing antagonizing labels based on nationality helps your argument at all. I completely understand what paganel said: nationality and culture play an important role here. There are cultures or subcultures that accept that we can be completely wrong in our assertions (are we just dreaming?), or they are based on mysticism, or they are relativists, or they are scientific. There are prejudices against you in the scientific environment if you have doubts about things like God or consciousness.
Jimmy 13y ago
>(for example just the other day I was thinking "hey, has anyone proved that mathematical induction is really intellectually honest? or was Hume actually right and it's all make-believe?") Mathematical induction is different from the type of induction that Hume was concerned with, and it's just as sound as any other method of mathematical proof.

aquaroris 13y ago

I'm thinking that consciousness, as it stands right now, is associated with a lot of things that should and ought to be reduced to mere sensation. Consciousness is associated with thought, emotion, and sensation. Yet as neuroscience progresses, I think we will eventually functionalize thought, emotion, and sensation as biological processes. Some may argue that our mental processes are fundamentally differently perceived from our external senses. But as a human being, we have internal sensations as well. We can feel internal pain and stomachaches. These have a fundamentally different sensation from the sensations that can be externally induced in us. Extrapolating further, we can say that thinking and feeling and other mental activity are mere sensations of the consciousness induced by the brain. Before physics, there was a large role for divinities in the world. Gods and the Abrahamic God ruled Nature and Fortune, the parts of the world that we do not understand. But as human beings gained mastery and confidence over the external world, the domain of divinities shrank and shrank. We now attribute causes of phenomena to the natural world, rather than divinities; divinities used to be the natural law of the universe, today they have to be content with the supernatural. Regardless of the philosophical justifications of consciousness, I see it going the way of divinities. The popularity of consciousness will wane as mental functions and mental states and cognition are understood. Societies will begin to use neuroscientific explanations to justify perception and behavior that provide actionable innovation and correction instead of attributing them to black-box consciousness. When that happens, the idea of consciousness will, I think, seem as absurd as divinities.

JackFr 13y ago
"Yet as neuroscience progresses, I think we will eventually functionalize thought, emotion, and sensation as biological processes." That, my friend, is your little divinity. Keep the faith!
- waveman2 13y ago
  It is a reasonable position I think. Given the progress with understanding many other things, it is reasonable to expect progress here - bearing in mind the incredible complexity of the brain. If philosophers were going to solve this problem they would have done so already, given that they have been at it for 2500 years or so with no real signs of progress. Science on the other hand has made enormous progress in understanding living things. Recall for example that only 100 years ago many or most people adhered to "vitalism" ie the view that living things contained an "elan vital" which distinguished them from inorganic matter. Enter biochemistry.

rickhanlonii 13y ago

I don't see anyone pretending that we know consciousness. However, we are in the process of understanding, and there has yet to be any proof or indication that that process will end before we conquer that knowledge. Given what we already know, and that we're in the infancy of real research in this area, there's every reason to believe that we're going to solve this mystery in the near future. And it's intellectually cowardice to pretend otherwise.

sveme 13y ago

There are actually highly interesting developments at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience, one of them being the works of Thomas Metzinger (see, e.g., http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-Model-Subjectivity/dp/0262633086 http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-Model-Subjectivity/d...). It's simply wrong to state that research into consciousness is at the state of "it emerges from neural activity".

sjs1234 13y ago

Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist. He has a theory of consciousness explained in a book called the feeling of what happens. The somatic marker hypothesis is a bit more than 'it emerges from neural activity' At the very minimum the book debunks a good number of otherwise plausible sounding theories. Damasio in that book also does a fantastic job of removing any mysticism from the exercise ... He's trying to explain what each of us recognize as conciousness in other animals. E.g. Many people think their dogs are concious without also holding mystical beliefs.