Philosophy Now Forum

Owl of Minerva wrote:

Maybe you meant parts of matter have consciousness, assuming that consciousness is pervasive, not "parts of matter are conscious.
.......................................................

bahman wrote:

No, I mean that the parts of matter are conscious.
........................................................

That is interesting. So far as I know both Easter religion and philosophy, although perceiving consciousness as fundamental, does not view nature as acting other than unconsciously, according to mathematical law, and animals according to instinct. Only humans are perceived as self conscious, although subject to natural law, having conscious choice in many areas.

Does your view, that parts of matter are conscious, derive from any religion or philosophy, or science, or is it just how you perceive it?

bahman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:46 am

Sculptor wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:12 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 7:31 pm
I see. That doesn't make sense to me. Thanks for your patience and for describing your worldview.

Nothing does make sense to a person who steadfastly refuses to examine the evidence.

Neurology is a massive field, and you have closed off your mind by saying "almost nothing is known".
The fact is that almost nothing is known BY YOU!!
So run along and find out, first then come back and tell us all what you have found.
You might starts with the difference between sensory and motor nerves; being voluntary and involuntary impulses; the differences between the cortext and whit matter; the amygdula; then look at the different areas that do different jobs; speech, face recognotion; pleasure/pain response and so on.

You are not making any sense for two reasons: 1) You evade my question and instead, telling me that the brain has parts, and 2) RCSaunders disagrees with you when it comes to consciousness.

You are on your own.
Your ignorance is not a defence, not does it make a case

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:21 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:46 am

Sculptor wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:12 pm

Nothing does make sense to a person who steadfastly refuses to examine the evidence.

Neurology is a massive field, and you have closed off your mind by saying "almost nothing is known".
The fact is that almost nothing is known BY YOU!!
So run along and find out, first then come back and tell us all what you have found.
You might starts with the difference between sensory and motor nerves; being voluntary and involuntary impulses; the differences between the cortext and whit matter; the amygdula; then look at the different areas that do different jobs; speech, face recognotion; pleasure/pain response and so on.

You are not making any sense for two reasons: 1) You evade my question and instead, telling me that the brain has parts, and 2) RCSaunders disagrees with you when it comes to consciousness.

Since you've taken my name in vain...
Sculptor and I do not disagree on what consciousness is, or on the fact that a great deal has been learned about the physiology of the brain. Our minor disagreement on consciousness is on whether consciousness can be explained by the physical behavior of the brain alone or not. Compared to your view, our disagreement hardly matters, and yours is sheer mystic nonsense.

With all due respect, that is your worldview that is sheer mystic nonsense. Materialism attempts to explain that the brain is conscious as a matter of matter process. The challenge is that how the brain could be conscious when its parts are not. Materialists say that this is due to emergence, voila magic is done. Your worldview does not even attempt to explain the consciousness. You simply say that consciousness is the property of the brain, voila magic is done.

owl of Minerva wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 7:31 pm Owl of Minerva wrote:

Maybe you meant parts of matter have consciousness, assuming that consciousness is pervasive, not "parts of matter are conscious.
.......................................................

bahman wrote:

No, I mean that the parts of matter are conscious.
........................................................

That is interesting. So far as I know both Easter religion and philosophy, although perceiving consciousness as fundamental, does not view nature as acting other than unconsciously, according to mathematical law, and animals according to instinct. Only humans are perceived as self conscious, although subject to natural law, having conscious choice in many areas.

Does your view, that parts of matter are conscious, derive from any religion or philosophy, or science, or is it just how you perceive it?

It is a part of my philosophy. The reason is simple, how the brain could be conscious if its parts are not? It is impossible (I have an argument against strong emergence that I can share it with you if you are interested). Therefore, the parts of the brain are conscious. This implies that parts of matter are generally conscious too whether it is a part of the brain or rock. It is only in the case of the brain that we can accumulate data, reason based on data, and report our reason. We also are capable of reporting our conscious internal state.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:59 am

bahman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:46 am

Sculptor wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:12 pm

Nothing does make sense to a person who steadfastly refuses to examine the evidence.

Neurology is a massive field, and you have closed off your mind by saying "almost nothing is known".
The fact is that almost nothing is known BY YOU!!
So run along and find out, first then come back and tell us all what you have found.
You might starts with the difference between sensory and motor nerves; being voluntary and involuntary impulses; the differences between the cortext and whit matter; the amygdula; then look at the different areas that do different jobs; speech, face recognotion; pleasure/pain response and so on.

You are not making any sense for two reasons: 1) You evade my question and instead, telling me that the brain has parts, and 2) RCSaunders disagrees with you when it comes to consciousness.

You are on your own.
Your ignorance is not a defence, not does it make a case

Come on, instead of throwing words try to explain the emergence of consciousness from its constituents that are not conscious.

bahman wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 2:05 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:59 am

bahman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:46 am
You are not making any sense for two reasons: 1) You evade my question and instead, telling me that the brain has parts, and 2) RCSaunders disagrees with you when it comes to consciousness.

You are on your own.
Your ignorance is not a defence, not does it make a case

Come on, instead of throwing words try to explain the emergence of consciousness from its constituents that are not conscious.

Try to explain the emergence of heat from wood which is not hot when you burn it.
Ultimately there are no such explanations for any phenomena. All we can do is describe what we see and demonstrate the processes; which neuroscience is doing very well proving that: Almost Everyting is Known about the Brain and conscious phenomena.

I've just read Wilder Penfield's book on this.

We do know a lot about the brain, it's clear; but we know very little about the mind. However we have a sense of what we do not know, and that's very interesting.

Penfield was a world-class neurologist. He worked on patients in open-brain, fully-conscious procedures, dealing with things like epilepsy and brain injury. And a couple of things became perfectly clear to him, in the process of his work. One is obvious: that the brain and mind have a relationship that is very tight in some ways. The second is much less obvious to people who lack Penfield's knowledge and experience: that there are certain things that cannot at all be reproduced by stimulation of the brain, and which cannot at all be accounted for by the belief that the physical brain is the comprehensive source of mind.

In one interesting case, he found that he could stimulate a patient's hand contraction by applying an electrode to an area of the patient's brain. No surprise there; we've known that for a long time. But what surprised Penfield was that the patient said to him, "I didn't do that; you did." Moreover, the patient was able to do it every time. He knew the difference between his volitional movement and the electrode-induced movement, even though the materials in the brain were being appropriately stimulated and the behaviour output was consistent.

Now, who was doing the "knowing" there? If the brain was the total story of what was going on, then the patient should have understood the Penfield-induced hand-clenching as being his own. There would be no other agency, so to speak, to stand back and look at what was happening, and call it "not mine." But there was.

That was just one of many such incidents. Another was Penfield's discovery that certain brain functions could never be induced, no matter which area of the brain was stimulated. But if they cannot be induced from the manipulation of the brain matter, then from where do they come? Most interestingly, one of those things is volition: it seems you cannot change a person's will by material manipulation. You can change their physical reactions, you can change their level of recall, you can make them hallucinate...but you cannot, for example, stimulate new learning in that fashion, or introduce "memories" of things to which the patient did not himself voluntarily attend. And there is no electrode-stimulation for a new concept, apparently.

But conceptualizing, volition, learning...these are very ordinary human mind-functions, functions we observe ever day. What does it mean that they have no counterparts and no triggers in the physiology of the doer? Where does that stuff come from, if it's not from the physical brain?

That's all very interesting.

bahman wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 1:52 pm With all due respect, that is your worldview that is sheer mystic nonsense. Materialism attempts to explain that the brain is conscious as a matter of matter process. The challenge is that how the brain could be conscious when its parts are not. Materialists say that this is due to emergence, voila magic is done. Your worldview does not even attempt to explain the consciousness. You simply say that consciousness is the property of the brain, voila magic is done.

The brain is not conscious. Consciousness, like life, and mass, and shape are are perfectly natural attributes (qualities, properties, or characteristics) of entities. Shape and mass are physical properties, life and consciousness are additional properties, but not physical. No property is produced by or emerges from another, shape does not produce mass or life or consciousness, mass does not produce shape of life or consciousness, and life does not produce mass or shape. They are all independent of each other, but none exist at all except as the attributes of actual entities. There is no shape, mass, life, or consciousness independent of actual physical, living, conscious organisms. Consciousness is only possible to living organisms. Entities without the life attribute cannot be conscious.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:15 pm Consciousness is only possible to living organisms. Entities without the life attribute cannot be conscious.

But how, then, has consciousness become possible to that which, by all Materialist accounts, was once lifeless matter? I think that's his point, RC.

After all, as the Materialist story goes (or the regnant version of it, anyway), we pick up our narrative at The Big Bang. At that point, we are told, all that existed was certain gasses, floating in space (how gas and space came about, we are not told; we have to take that on faith, I guess.) But nobody thinks that at the BB point, there was life in the universe. There was just gas, plasma...stuff. Nothing with life in it.

Then, "boom". Stuff appears. (Why it exploded, what was the catalyst, we are not told; it just happened, to shawdup, I guess.) But it still had no life in it.

When and how did life appear? And was that life conscious from the start? How did this "consciousness" thing suddenly emerge from something that we all know was definitively lifeless and non-conscious? Consciousness is a genuinely new property, bearing no obvious causal relationship to hydrogen, or plasma, or whatever. So how did it come about?

You've got to admit that's a good question, no?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:27 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:15 pm Consciousness is only possible to living organisms. Entities without the life attribute cannot be conscious.

But how, then, has consciousness become possible to that which, by all Materialist accounts, was once lifeless matter? I think that's his point, RC.

After all, as the Materialist story goes (or the regnant version of it, anyway), we pick up our narrative at The Big Bang. At that point, we are told, all that existed was certain gasses, floating in space (how gas and space came about, we are not told; we have to take that on faith, I guess.) But nobody thinks that at the BB point, there was life in the universe. There was just gas, plasma...stuff. Nothing with life in it.

Then, "boom". Stuff appears. (Why it exploded, what was the catalyst, we are not told; it just happened, to shawdup, I guess.) But it still had no life in it.

When and how did life appear? And was that life conscious from the start? How did this "consciousness" thing suddenly emerge from something that we all know was definitively lifeless and non-conscious? Consciousness is a genuinely new property, bearing no obvious causal relationship to hydrogen, or plasma, or whatever. So how did it come about?

You've got to admit that's a good question, no?

No, it's a stupid question. It's like asking how did mass come to physical things. They are physical things because they have mass as an attribute. Nothing else is responsible for making a thing have mass. There are things and they are what they are and have the properies they have. After identifying those properties (shape, size, color, mass, charge, or whatever others there are) asking how they got those properties is a false and baseless premise based on the assumption, ala Plato or religion, that existence is contingent on something else that makes it what it is. Life is an attribute; the one that differentiates organisms from mere physical entities. Consciousness is an attribute; the one that differentiates conscious organism (like animals) from mere simple organisms (like plants).

We've been all over this before, IC. I'm not a physicalist (what you mean by materialist). Life and consciousness no more have to come from something else than any of the other natural properties of existents.

I quite frankly, do not know what your question about consciousness, "so how did it come about," means. What evidence do you have (not the conjectures of cosmologists or any other pseudo-science that proceeds by guesswork) that it, "came about?" What exactly does it mean, "came about?" Without resorting to some form of contingent view of existence, why would conscious require anything to explain it beyond explaining what is meant by it?

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:27 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:15 pm Consciousness is only possible to living organisms. Entities without the life attribute cannot be conscious.

But how, then, has consciousness become possible to that which, by all Materialist accounts, was once lifeless matter? I think that's his point, RC.

After all, as the Materialist story goes (or the regnant version of it, anyway), we pick up our narrative at The Big Bang. At that point, we are told, all that existed was certain gasses, floating in space (how gas and space came about, we are not told; we have to take that on faith, I guess.) But nobody thinks that at the BB point, there was life in the universe. There was just gas, plasma...stuff. Nothing with life in it.

Then, "boom". Stuff appears. (Why it exploded, what was the catalyst, we are not told; it just happened, to shawdup, I guess.) But it still had no life in it.

When and how did life appear? And was that life conscious from the start? How did this "consciousness" thing suddenly emerge from something that we all know was definitively lifeless and non-conscious? Consciousness is a genuinely new property, bearing no obvious causal relationship to hydrogen, or plasma, or whatever. So how did it come about?

You've got to admit that's a good question, no?

No, it's a stupid question. It's like asking how did mass come to physical things. They are physical things because they have mass as an attribute. Nothing else is responsible for making a thing have mass. There are things and they are what they are and have the properies they have. After identifying those properties (shape, size, color, mass, charge, or whatever others there are) asking how they got those properties is a false and baseless premise based on the assumption, ala Plato or religion, that existence is contingent on something else that makes it what it is. Life is an attribute; the one that differentiates organisms from mere physical entities. Consciousness is an attribute; the one that differentiates conscious organism (like animals) from mere simple organisms (like plants).

We've been all over this before, IC. I'm not a physicalist (what you mean by materialist). Life and consciousness no more have to come from something else than any of the other natural properties of existents.

I quite frankly, do not know what your question about consciousness, "so how did it come about," means. What evidence do you have (not the conjectures of cosmologists or any other pseudo-science that proceeds by guesswork) that it, "came about?" What exactly does it mean, "came about?" Without resorting to some form of contingent view of existence, why would conscious require anything to explain it beyond explaining what is meant by it?

LIke others of his ilk, he wants you to answer "god made it come about" as if that were some sort of answer, and ignoring the fact that presumably god was conscious, already, of making it "come about".
Pretty soon IC wil just disappear up his own omphalos.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:27 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:15 pm Consciousness is only possible to living organisms. Entities without the life attribute cannot be conscious.

But how, then, has consciousness become possible to that which, by all Materialist accounts, was once lifeless matter? I think that's his point, RC.

After all, as the Materialist story goes (or the regnant version of it, anyway), we pick up our narrative at The Big Bang. At that point, we are told, all that existed was certain gasses, floating in space (how gas and space came about, we are not told; we have to take that on faith, I guess.) But nobody thinks that at the BB point, there was life in the universe. There was just gas, plasma...stuff. Nothing with life in it.

Then, "boom". Stuff appears. (Why it exploded, what was the catalyst, we are not told; it just happened, to shawdup, I guess.) But it still had no life in it.

When and how did life appear? And was that life conscious from the start? How did this "consciousness" thing suddenly emerge from something that we all know was definitively lifeless and non-conscious? Consciousness is a genuinely new property, bearing no obvious causal relationship to hydrogen, or plasma, or whatever. So how did it come about?

You've got to admit that's a good question, no?

No, it's a stupid question. It's like asking how did mass come to physical things.

No, actually, it's not at all like that. Mass is a thing that things have when they already exist.

You don't believe hydrogen molecules, or helium, or plasma are "life" do you? You don't believe that inert gasses are life forms, do you?

Well, if they're not, then how did life come from them?

Life is an attribute;

Not of hydrogen. Only of things that are already living. But the question is not, "Are they living," but rather "How did life come out of mere inert, lifeless materials?"

I quite frankly, do not know what your question about consciousness, "so how did it come about," means.

It's very easy. If the universe once had no life in it, how did life come to be in it? Likewise, if the brain is nothing but matter, how did it come to have consciousness? Much of the matter in the universe has none. Rocks have none. Stars have none. Oceans have none. And hydrogen atoms have none.

So where did these things come from? How did they appear, given that they are said to have come from things that have not one iota of the qualities we call "life" or "consciousness"?

These are huge questions you really aren't answering at all. But you kind of need to have an answer, if your view of the universe is to be regarded as coherent or plausible. It seems to me you're interested in people reading your ideas and taking them seriously. I'm just pointing out that there's a black hole in your explanation of consciousness. If I don't point it out, somebody else probably will, because it's pretty obvious.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:04 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:27 pm
But how, then, has consciousness become possible to that which, by all Materialist accounts, was once lifeless matter? I think that's his point, RC.

After all, as the Materialist story goes (or the regnant version of it, anyway), we pick up our narrative at The Big Bang. At that point, we are told, all that existed was certain gasses, floating in space (how gas and space came about, we are not told; we have to take that on faith, I guess.) But nobody thinks that at the BB point, there was life in the universe. There was just gas, plasma...stuff. Nothing with life in it.

Then, "boom". Stuff appears. (Why it exploded, what was the catalyst, we are not told; it just happened, to shawdup, I guess.) But it still had no life in it.

When and how did life appear? And was that life conscious from the start? How did this "consciousness" thing suddenly emerge from something that we all know was definitively lifeless and non-conscious? Consciousness is a genuinely new property, bearing no obvious causal relationship to hydrogen, or plasma, or whatever. So how did it come about?

You've got to admit that's a good question, no?

No, it's a stupid question. It's like asking how did mass come to physical things. They are physical things because they have mass as an attribute. Nothing else is responsible for making a thing have mass. There are things and they are what they are and have the properies they have. After identifying those properties (shape, size, color, mass, charge, or whatever others there are) asking how they got those properties is a false and baseless premise based on the assumption, ala Plato or religion, that existence is contingent on something else that makes it what it is. Life is an attribute; the one that differentiates organisms from mere physical entities. Consciousness is an attribute; the one that differentiates conscious organism (like animals) from mere simple organisms (like plants).

We've been all over this before, IC. I'm not a physicalist (what you mean by materialist). Life and consciousness no more have to come from something else than any of the other natural properties of existents.

I quite frankly, do not know what your question about consciousness, "so how did it come about," means. What evidence do you have (not the conjectures of cosmologists or any other pseudo-science that proceeds by guesswork) that it, "came about?" What exactly does it mean, "came about?" Without resorting to some form of contingent view of existence, why would conscious require anything to explain it beyond explaining what is meant by it?

LIke others of his ilk, he wants you to answer "god made it come about" as if that were some sort of answer, and ignoring the fact that presumably god was conscious, already, of making it "come about".
Pretty soon IC wil just disappear up his own omphalos.

Then he'll become a Buddhist.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 7:47 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:04 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:51 pm
No, it's a stupid question. It's like asking how did mass come to physical things. They are physical things because they have mass as an attribute. Nothing else is responsible for making a thing have mass. There are things and they are what they are and have the properies they have. After identifying those properties (shape, size, color, mass, charge, or whatever others there are) asking how they got those properties is a false and baseless premise based on the assumption, ala Plato or religion, that existence is contingent on something else that makes it what it is. Life is an attribute; the one that differentiates organisms from mere physical entities. Consciousness is an attribute; the one that differentiates conscious organism (like animals) from mere simple organisms (like plants).

We've been all over this before, IC. I'm not a physicalist (what you mean by materialist). Life and consciousness no more have to come from something else than any of the other natural properties of existents.

I quite frankly, do not know what your question about consciousness, "so how did it come about," means. What evidence do you have (not the conjectures of cosmologists or any other pseudo-science that proceeds by guesswork) that it, "came about?" What exactly does it mean, "came about?" Without resorting to some form of contingent view of existence, why would conscious require anything to explain it beyond explaining what is meant by it?

LIke others of his ilk, he wants you to answer "god made it come about" as if that were some sort of answer, and ignoring the fact that presumably god was conscious, already, of making it "come about".
Pretty soon IC wil just disappear up his own omphalos.

Then he'll become a Buddhist.

Not sure he has the intellect.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:24 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:27 pm
But how, then, has consciousness become possible to that which, by all Materialist accounts, was once lifeless matter? I think that's his point, RC.

After all, as the Materialist story goes (or the regnant version of it, anyway), we pick up our narrative at The Big Bang. At that point, we are told, all that existed was certain gasses, floating in space (how gas and space came about, we are not told; we have to take that on faith, I guess.) But nobody thinks that at the BB point, there was life in the universe. There was just gas, plasma...stuff. Nothing with life in it.

Then, "boom". Stuff appears. (Why it exploded, what was the catalyst, we are not told; it just happened, to shawdup, I guess.) But it still had no life in it.

When and how did life appear? And was that life conscious from the start? How did this "consciousness" thing suddenly emerge from something that we all know was definitively lifeless and non-conscious? Consciousness is a genuinely new property, bearing no obvious causal relationship to hydrogen, or plasma, or whatever. So how did it come about?

You've got to admit that's a good question, no?

No, it's a stupid question. It's like asking how did mass come to physical things.

No, actually, it's not at all like that. Mass is a thing that things have when they already exist.

Of course, just as life is a thing organisms have when they already exist.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:24 pm You don't believe hydrogen molecules, or helium, or plasma are "life" do you? You don't believe that inert gasses are life forms, do you?

Well, if they're not, then how did life come from them?

You don't believe lead has magnetic properties do you? You don't believe diamonds are liquid, do you. Everything doesn't have all possible attributes. Some are magnetic, some are solid, some are liquid, some are gas, some are hot, some are cold, some are living, some are conscious. None of them come from any of the others.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:24 pm
Not of hydrogen. ...

Nor of any non-living entity, of course, just as liquid is not an attribute of any solid entity, or magnetic properties of any non-metalic element.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:24 pm ... Only of things that are already living. But the question is not, "Are they living," but rather "How did life come out of mere inert, lifeless materials?"

The fact is, life is a property of. "some hydrogen." that is part of an organism along with it's oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, iron, copper, and most other elements. Life is a property of living entities and every living entity is a physical entity (comprised of physical elements). Life does not, "come out of inert physical elements," the physical elements become part of living entities by being ingested or consumed in some other way (breathing, absorption, osmosis, etc.) by living organisms becoming part of those organisms.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:24 pm It's very easy. If the universe once had no life in it, how did life come to be in it? Likewise, if the brain is nothing but matter, how did it come to have consciousness? Much of the matter in the universe has none. Rocks have none. Stars have none. Oceans have none. And hydrogen atoms have none.

You do not know, "the universe once had no life in it," and the brain is not conscious. You can cut it, burn it, or do almost anything else to the brain, and the brain is unable to be aware in any way of what is done to it. It is not conscious of anything. A living organism is conscious and it's consciousness is interdependent with the function of the brain, but the brain itself is not conscious of anything.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:24 pm These are huge questions you really aren't answering at all. But you kind of need to have an answer .... If I don't point it out, somebody else probably will, because it's pretty obvious.

You're the only one with questions. I'm only trying to answer them, not to convince you but because I thought you might be truly interested. Seems more like you are trying to convince me of something.

To the simple-minded, the world is obviously flat--but it isn't.