Pure Consciousness?

[MGL]

I think MGL is saying that physical stuff cannot be mental stuff. Hence the need for some type of dualist theory.

Actually I'm not suggesting any type of substantial dualist theory, I'm just objecting to the notion that the brain produces the phenomenal features of consciousness.
I am perhaps claiming that phenomenal properties are radically different from properties we normally ascribe as physical, but this is not particularly controversial as it as the root of the mind\body question or hard problem of consciousness.

I take a physicalist approach that does not deny the existence of qualia ( like Dennet ) but rather assumes that qualia are intrinsic properties of physical objects\states\processes. Thus, the difference between mental and "physical" is simply that the latter are spatio-temporal relations of\between the physical objects\states\processes while the former are their intrinsic properties.


I also take a strict physicalist reductionist approach to explanation that would require all emergent phenomena or properties to derive necessarily from fundamental features of physical reality. That it is to say that all the fundamental laws of physics should relate to the fundamental entities of reality. The idea that there could be some fundamental law that manifests itself only at some specific complex arrangement of matter ( eg the brain ) that was not in principle derivable from the laws that regulate the fundamental entities seems to be rather strange and reminds me of a "God of the gaps" or reliance on a "Life Force" to account for things we don't yet fully understand.

[Gee]

Well Members;

I am recovered and back. You have had a good time arguing about whether or not consciousness comes from the brain, but what about endospores?

The reason that I chose the endospore for this thread is because it is more than 200 million years old, and because changing into an endospore is not an automatic form of reproduction. This is a process that a bacteria initiates for survival. One could even say that it is in response to the "fight or flight" instinct, except it hides instead of fleeing.

So how does an endospore know to turn itself back into bacteria? Water does not affect it. Heat does not make it turn back on. It only responds to a life sustaining environment, which would include the proper nutrients and warmth. So how does it know to respond?

It has been suggested that this is an automatic process, like planets circling the sun. But planets circling the sun have a pattern; by all indications the endospore does not have any discernible pattern, responding only to it's environment. We could speculate that every six months or so, one endospore wakes up and checks out the environment--then dies or awakens its siblings. But then, how would it communicate with its siblings?

If evolution is to be believed, then the endospore existed prior to the complex human brain--as did many other species. So do endospore have brains? If they do, please tell me where I can find evidence of this information. If not, then consciousness would not appear to come from it's brain.

Gee

[Gee]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, and don't know what others might mean by "pure consciousness".

I think of the term as meaning being aware without thinking. Observing reality, without analyzing it, categorizing it, comparing it, ranking it etc.

After considering your response for a few days, I think that I know what you mean. Although this was not my meaning when considering "pure consciousness", it certainly rings true. Simply feeling, without thought, would be a pure form of consciousness.

I suspect that you are a romantic.

Gee

[Ginkgo]

I think MGL is saying that physical stuff cannot be mental stuff. Hence the need for some type of dualist theory.

Actually I'm not suggesting any type of substantial dualist theory, I'm just objecting to the notion that the brain produces the phenomenal features of consciousness.
I am perhaps claiming that phenomenal properties are radically different from properties we normally ascribe as physical, but this is not particularly controversial as it as the root of the mind\body question or hard problem of consciousness.

I take a physicalist approach that does not deny the existence of qualia ( like Dennet ) but rather assumes that qualia are intrinsic properties of physical objects\states\processes. Thus, the difference between mental and "physical" is simply that the latter are spatio-temporal relations of\between the physical objects\states\processes while the former are their intrinsic properties.


I also take a strict physicalist reductionist approach to explanation that would require all emergent phenomena or properties to derive necessarily from fundamental features of physical reality. That it is to say that all the fundamental laws of physics should relate to the fundamental entities of reality. The idea that there could be some fundamental law that manifests itself only at some specific complex arrangement of matter ( eg the brain ) that was not in principle derivable from the laws that regulate the fundamental entities seems to be rather strange and reminds me of a "God of the gaps" or reliance on a "Life Force" to account for things we don't yet fully understand.

I'm not really sure how we talk about the hard problem without introducing some aspect of dualism. More than likely property dualism.

By claiming that qualia ( I think this is what you are saying) can exist within the object creates a few problems. The term 'qualia' is usually reserved for the subjective individual. This is why it is understood in terms of some type of dualism. Physicalists like Dennett completely rejects any idea of qualia because of this implication.

[Ginkgo]

If evolution is to be believed, then the endospore existed prior to the complex human brain--as did many other species. So do endospore have brains? If they do, please tell me where I can find evidence of this information. If not, then consciousness would not appear to come from it's brain.

Gee

Hello Gee,

I think I have a reasonable idea of what you are trying to achieve. So I think the only place you can go with this are with people such as quantum physicist David Bohm. Even though he was a respected in his field his ideas are very much what might be termed, 'fringe science'

No endospores don't have brains and they are not intelligent, but the universe they are apart of might be intelligent. Very basically, this is Bohm's thesis. I really think this would be your best bet. Based on modern science I think you would have a very difficult time arguing that bacteria are intelligent.

[Gee]

Hello Gee,

I'm glad you found Spinoza helpful. I think it would be possible to explain your idea using Spinoza. That is why I chose to use the words, 'informed behaviour'. because it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone, or any thing has to do the informing. This is also why I also mentioned quantum physicist David Bohm. Much of his work and that of psychologist Karl Pribram was incorporated into a book by Michael Talbot called, "The Holographic Universe".

Per your suggestion, I looked up Talbot in Wiki, read his introduction to his book, and watched a video of him being interviewed by ThinkingAllowed. It was interesting. I think that I am going to buy his book because he has some heavy-weight scientists that corroborate his ideas, and he has information on out-of-body experience, which I know little about, but think may be relative to "focus".

As to his Holographic Universe, it seems to me that this is a new twist on an old idea. From Plato's "cave" explanation, through many different dream theories and psychic theories, to the all-knowing invisible God, to Holograms, these all seem to be different interpretations of the same thing. In all of these theories, correct me if I am wrong, at the root there is a knowledge or information that is the "source", and this source is ensconced in an immaterial universal reality. The only real differences that I see are that some, like Talbot, include thought in this "reality", and some, like religion, include emotion in this "reality". I think that including thought or emotion in this type of idea is a mistake, as thought and emotion are part of living things, not part of the universe.

To me, these ideas are comparable to my concept of "awareness" in the universe. My understanding is that this universal awareness is all knowledge--that means all life, all places, all situations, all circumstance, all times--all situated in non-matter. The problem that I see with this "awareness" is that it is supposedly all knowing, yet knows absolutely nothing--not one thing. In order to know anything, it would have to be able to focus on that thing, so it would have to focus from some where--but there is no "where" in a non-material reality.

So even though, in theory, it knows everything, in fact, it knows nothing, because it has no way to discern any specific thing. It would be like jumping into a pool of water to see what a water molecule is made up of; even though you would be surrounded by water molecules, you could stay there for years and never learn anything about water molecules. No focus.

So why do we call it "consciousness" or "awareness" in the universe? Probably for the same reason that we call water "wet", because that is what it feels like to us. So I doubt that anything in the universe is actually aware until it is activated by matter--then it is aware, and we call that awareness, life. Then the question becomes how is this activation accomplished? How does it dial in to matter? Hell if I know, I don't even know how my cell phone works. (chuckle)

We should probably call it "potential awareness", but anyway, this is my understanding of this concept. It makes sense to me. But Chaz is going to rip it apart, because he can.

I probably created a bit of confusion by mentioning the word, 'awareness'. I took the word to mean 'attention'. I guess that is the problem of trying to define a concept. You always have to resort to using another concept. Anyway, consciousness being attention is where the latest ideas in philosophy of mind are going at the moment. No need for you to go there. Keeping in tune with the theme at the moment I guess we could say that consciousness as attention is just one level of a multi-level reality.

This is the reason that I broke down the aspects of consciousness. When one uses the word "attention" it denotes thought; thought is part of consciousness, but only part, so "attention" is relevant only some times.

You have brought up the concept of Dualism a number of times, so I thought that I should clarify my position on that idea.

Humans are physical, mental, and spiritual beings, three things, so I think that the "dualism" people need to learn how to count higher. Of course, they would say that they are simply talking about the tangible and intangible, and that the mental and spiritual are the same thing. To that I would reply that bones and blood are the same thing--but not very interchangeable.

Regarding Monism; humans are physical, mental, and spiritual beings, three things, two of them are intangibles. So I think that the "monism" people need to stop getting their panties in a twist, and start learning about this intangible. Thought and emotion, both exist; if they exist they are real; if they are real, then they have properties; something that has properties is not "nothing", so start figuring it out.

Another rant by Gee

[Gee]

I think I have a reasonable idea of what you are trying to achieve.

Based on modern science I think you would have a very difficult time arguing that bacteria are intelligent.

Ginkgo;

Based on these two statements, it is clear that you have no idea of what I am trying to achieve.

Bacteria are NOT intelligent.

This is what drives me crazy. People assume that consciousness means all aspects of consciousness. It is not so. Bacteria have instincts as is evidenced by their desire to preserve their life, but that does not give them intelligence, or thought, or emotion.

Consciousness is not distributed evenly in species. Bacteria have proven that they are aware, but what are they aware of? Damned little, from what I can see. I have no reason to believe that they are even aware of themselves as distinct from the world that they inhabit.

Gee

[Ginkgo]

I think the problem comes about because of the use of certain words, such as "instincts" and "desires". I think it's hard to get the idea across because people usually associate instincts and desires with higher levels of consciousness when you really want it to mean other types of consciousness.

OK, How about this?

Talbot, through Bohm is basically saying that nothing is disconnected from anything else. It is a theory of non-locality. Once referred to by a famous scientist as, "Spooky action at a distance".

The idea is that everything has a role to playing in creating an intelligent universe. Perhaps we could look at it like this. In the brain are billions of neurons, each connected. No single neuron is intelligent, has desires or instincts. All together they might be able to produce these things. So it has an overall part to play in the intelligence process. However, by itself, the neuron it is not aware that it is part of the bigger picture. It is not aware that it functions create overall intelligence.

[chaz wyman]

I think the problem comes about because of the use of certain words, such as "instincts" and "desires". I think it's hard to get the idea across because people usually associate instincts and desires with higher levels of consciousness when you really want it to mean other types of consciousness.
.

I do not think this can be right. Instincts are not associated with higher levels of consciousness, but usually comes into use when trying to describe automatic behaviours, such as a worker ant's instinct to gather nectar and store it without eating it; the way a human baby will "know" to find a nipple and to suck.
Desire is another matter, and that is a tendency that we are aware of, though it most often comes unbidden and is not rational (I do not mean irrational); such as a desire for a member of the opposite sex.
But neither is to do with higher level of consciousness in any sense.

[chaz wyman]

I think I have a reasonable idea of what you are trying to achieve.

Based on modern science I think you would have a very difficult time arguing that bacteria are intelligent.

There is absolutely NO problem describing bacteria as intelligent. If a computer can have artificial intelligence, then other autonomic systems in nature can also be said to have this.
Obvious that is quite different from consciousness, though.

[MGL]

I'm not really sure how we talk about the hard problem without introducing some aspect of dualism. More than likely property dualism.

By claiming that qualia ( I think this is what you are saying) can exist within the object creates a few problems. The term 'qualia' is usually reserved for the subjective individual. This is why it is understood in terms of some type of dualism. Physicalists like Dennett completely rejects any idea of qualia because of this implication.

If all you mean by property dualism is something like my distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic\relational properties then I agree, dualism is inherent in the problem. But if you mean to imply a distinction between mental and physical, I think you are presupposing too much.

Of course when we talk of qualia, we are referring to things that are part of the subjective individual's experiences, but it is again a presuposition that qualia are necessarily only features of a subjective mind. It is because physicalists like Dennet make this assumption that they are obliged to reject any idea of qualia, while others who accept the premise are obliged to consider some form of dualism.

Of course you could define qualia as being restricted to a subjective mind, but I can still conceive of qualia thus defined as being just a subset of a wider set of phenomena.

[chaz wyman]

This debate only really exists from the problem of reduction. One camp wants to reduce the universe to one substance whilst another demand that there are two. Monism and Dualism are both crack theories. and are hampered by the inertia of historical and endemic assumption, but are both unwarranted.
It seems to me obvious enough that the only universal fact about the universe is that it is complex. Interacting matter exhibits qualities far beyond what could reasonably be reduced to one or two things. Why does this obsession exist?
I suggest that religion lies beneath these false propositions; one wishing to see god as behind the universe the other sees god as the universe. That is not to suggest that individuals holding on to these ideas is themselves religious, but they have inherited these ideas by osmosis in the culturally endemic assumptions we are all brought up with. The most prevalent of the two is dualism which lies at the heart of every 'body-swap" film and book ever written.
eg. Laughing Gas, by P G Wodehouse; Big with Tom Hanks. I'm sure you can think of a few more.
Even Star Trek's transporter has a body reassembled from atoms on another planet, as if the physical matter that constitutes a person is of no matter.
but we all know that the Personality is dependant on a healthy brain, as damage to a brain can completely change to character of a person, and ALzheimer's disease is a gradual disappearing act of the person before your eyes - ther is not place for a soul here.

[Gee]

I think the problem comes about because of the use of certain words, such as "instincts" and "desires". I think it's hard to get the idea across because people usually associate instincts and desires with higher levels of consciousness when you really want it to mean other types of consciousness.

I can see where you could be confused, because I am the only person that I know of that actually equates instinct with consciousness. If you look up the word "instinct" in Wiki, you will find that it is about behavior, not consciousness, as this word was first used to observe and note behavior in animals and other species.

If you talk to someone, who has spent years in college to learn Animal Behavior, you will find that they are very knowledgeable about the awareness, knowledge, and reactions that make up instincts in different species. One text book example that was explained to me was about a bird (don't remember what kind), that was born (hatched) and raised in captivity and had never been exposed to natural surroundings. The scientists exposed this bird to different things, but when exposed to a snake, that eats that kind of bird, the bird reacted with panic and fright. Their conclusion was that the bird "instinctively" knew that the snake was dangerous. This is one of the ways that they test for instincts.

But when I pointed out, if the bird was aware of and possessed knowledge of the snake, wouldn't that make the bird conscious? I was told no, that animals have some kind of awareness and instinctive knowledge, but they are not conscious--only humans are conscious. What? Now people will agree that instincts are part of our consciousness as Freud explained that pretty clearly, but still insist that instincts do not denote consciousness in other species. But they can give no explanation as to why this is so.

This makes no sense at all, and I have been given no valid explanation, so it is my assumption that the only real difference between animal instincts and human instincts comes from religion. (Humans have souls--consciousness--and other species do not.) To artificially divide instincts between species by belief, instead of by fact, is foolhardy and deprives us of an opportunity to better understand consciousness. I will make no such division. In a bit, I will put together a post that shows what I have learned because I will make no such division.

OK, How about this?

Talbot, through Bohm is basically saying that nothing is disconnected from anything else. It is a theory of non-locality. Once referred to by a famous scientist as, "Spooky action at a distance".

I don't really have a problem with this theory as a "part" of the explanation, but don't see this as a "whole" explanation. If you consider what Ignacio Matte Blanco discovered about the unconscious mind, then it could also be considered as "non-local". His understanding that the unconscious sees predominantly the "common" aspects and has no understanding of time, and maybe space, shows that this part of the mind is compatible with non-locality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco

The idea is that everything has a role to playing in creating an intelligent universe. Perhaps we could look at it like this. In the brain are billions of neurons, each connected. No single neuron is intelligent, has desires or instincts. All together they might be able to produce these things. So it has an overall part to play in the intelligence process. However, by itself, the neuron it is not aware that it is part of the bigger picture. It is not aware that it functions create overall intelligence.

Ok. This is much in line with the Hindu concept that the God, Brahma (not sure of spelling), created the world in order to "see" himself.

First, I would like to say that "instincts" have little or nothing to do with neurons and work through hormones. Second, what does this say about emotion, as I think this is relevant.

The other problem that I have with this theory is that if all it takes is a bunch of non-intelligent life forms to accomplish this, then why evolution? Why not just stop with an outrageous number of bacteria? We know that bacteria were here first. We know that bacteria do not need us to survive, but we do need bacteria to survive, so why the continuing evolution? Does he have an explanation for this?

Gee

[Ginkgo]

No, you are not the only one. Chaz made reference to this and I think it is a perfectly legitimate argument that many biologists would support.

The more I look at it the more i like it. I guess like a lot of people of my generation I am suffering from a type of 'psychological chauvinism' when it comes to biology. It was a mistake on my part to think that you were saying bacteria are intelligent.

In fact now I come to think of it of it there is no reason why Chalmers', 'easy problem' can't be looked at in terms of simple organisms. He probably didn't consider this himself, but there is no reason why it can't be applied in a broad sense. Obviously not all of the 'easy problems' are applicable to simple organisms, but it would seem some are. Consider the following


The ability to and react to environmental stimuli

The ability to access it's own internal states

The deliberate control of behaviour.


P.S. I think that your question in relation to continuing evolution is a good one and I hope to address this a bit later.

[chaz wyman]

I do think this debate is about 90 years out of date. Take a look at B Russell's "Analysis of Mind" for the views on the early 20thC and the rejection of the whole argument concerning "consciousness", you can even download it on Kindle or similar.

Were he alive today he would probably say that the 'hard problem" is only a problem because of a misconceived idea of 'consciousness'.