Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:31 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:29 pm You missed my point. Consciousness does not produce a field like an electron around itself. There is no such thing as the field of consciousness, sweetness, bitterness, etc. Therefore in this sense consciousness, sweetness, etc. cannot affect anything. I am informing you mainly through electromagnetic force and not consciousness.

You are shifting the goalposts! You said that it must be measurable.

We are right on the spot. Any measurable property of an entity, such as charge in electron, causes a field around the entity such that it can be measured, such as the electromagnetic field in case of an electron. There is, however, no field of consciousness. Therefore consciousness cannot be measured as the charge of an electron can be measured.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:42 pm We are right on the spot. Any measurable property of an entity, such as charge in electron, causes a field around the entity such that it can be measured, such as the electromagnetic field in case of an electron. There is, however, no field of consciousness. Therefore consciousness cannot be measured as the charge of an electron can be measured.

Of course it can be measured - I literally just explained to you HOW to measure it!

Are you now saying that the Bit is NOT a unit of measurement?

How much more of your mental gymnastics must we endure before you admit that you are wrong?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:36 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:34 pm You cannot possibly prove that I am a conscious being given the fact that I always reply to you. You need a device to prove that I am a conscious being and for that, you need a sensor that can be affected by the field of consciousness.

Which is why I asked you - if you are insisting that your brain has no such property called "consciousness", when shall we proceed to replace it with a magnetic coil for you?

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:34 pm But there cannot be such a device/sensor because there is no field of consciousness.

Of course there is such a device/sensor - I am it! The question is: "Is bahman talking to me?"
Through empirical observation the answer is obviously "yes!". I have measured it!

Are you saying that the measurement is wrong? Are you saying that you aren't talking to me and that I am just hallucinating this conversation?

No. All I am saying is that there is no field of consciousness, therefore, consciousness cannot be measured. As I mentioned we are interacting through the electromagnetic force.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:45 pm consciousness cannot be measured

I literally just EXPLAINED to you HOW to measure it!

Are you now saying that the Bit is NOT a unit of measurement?

How much more of your mental gymnastics must we endure before you admit that you are wrong?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:42 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:42 pm We are right on the spot. Any measurable property of an entity, such as charge in electron, causes a field around the entity such that it can be measured, such as the electromagnetic field in case of an electron. There is, however, no field of consciousness. Therefore consciousness cannot be measured as the charge of an electron can be measured.

Of course it can be measured - I literally just explained to you HOW to measure it!

Are you now saying that the Bit is NOT a unit of measurement?

How much more of your mental gymnastics must we endure before you admit that you are wrong?

What you are experiencing is what is given to you by the electromagnetic field rather than my conscious field. What I am stressing is that there is no conscious field.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:48 pm there is no conscious field

I never said there is? I only EXPLAINED to you how to measure consciousness.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:48 pm What you are experiencing is what is given to you by the electromagnetic field rather than my conscious field.

Do you understand causality? I experienced that which your consciousness caused.

If you weren't conscious you wouldn't have caused an electromagnetic field for me to experience.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:49 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:48 pm there is no conscious field

I never said there is? I only EXPLAINED to you how to measure consciousness.

What you are measuring is the electromagnetic field. That is electromagnetic field that carries information from me to you. There is no field of consciousness as you admitted, therefore, consciousness is not an emergent property since any property affects other things directly through its field.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:49 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:48 pm What you are experiencing is what is given to you by the electromagnetic field rather than my conscious field.

Do you understand causality? I experienced that which your consciousness caused.

If you weren't conscious you wouldn't have caused an electromagnetic field for me to experience.

You cannot possibly prove that I am a conscious being given the fact that there is an exchange of information between me and you.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:57 pm What you are measuring is the electromagnetic field.

No, what I am measuring is that which CAUSED the field.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:57 pm That is electromagnetic field that carries information from me to you. There is no field of consciousness as you admitted, therefore, consciousness is not an emergent property since any property affects other things directly through its field.

Then what caused this electromagnetic field?
What caused the keys on your keyboard to push themselves?
What caused the muscles in your fingers to push the keys?
What caused the nerves in your hands to operate your muscles?
What caused the nerves to fire?

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:58 pm You cannot possibly prove that I am a conscious being given the fact that there is an exchange of information between me and you.

You do understand that "proving things" is a misguided philosophical misnomer, right?

You can't prove that gravity exists.
You can't prove that matter exists.
You can't prove that you exist.
You can't prove that the universe exists.

You can't "prove" ANYTHING.

Science is not in the business of "proving" things. Science is in the business of measuring things and constructing models.

And I have EXPLAINED to you how to scientifically measure consciousness.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:31 pmConsciousness is measurable with information.

Would bahman be talking to me if he weren't conscious? No.

That is 1 Unit of Information Unit of Information.

This doesn't work for me. "Information", as you speak of it, doesn't measure consciousness.

You could use bits to measure how much information is contained in a book.

Minds contain information. Books contain information. Books aren't conscious. You wouldn't say "This mind contains the same amount of bits as those books. Therefore those books are as conscious at this mind."

Or would you?

PTH wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:15 pm This doesn't work for me. "Information", as you speak of it, doesn't measure consciousness.

It measures SOMETHING. You are welcome to stick whatever label you want on it.

PTH wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:15 pm You could use bits to measure how much information is contained in a book.

You can use bits to measure ANYTHING. The process is as follows.

1. Formulate a hypothesis that can be confirmed or disconfirmed e.g answered with a yes/no question (this creates 50% uncertainty in your mind))
2. Decide what evidence supports the "Yes" hypothesis.
3. Decide what evidence supports the "No" hypothesis.

Obtaining evidence increases your certainty towards the Yes or No hypothesis. Leading you to a conclusion.

This is how most science works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference

PTH wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:15 pm Minds contain information. Books contain information. Books aren't conscious. You wouldn't say "This mind contains the same amount of bits as those books. Therefore those books are as conscious at this mind."

Or would you?

That which causes bahman to speak to me. That thing - which has causal properties on his nervous system, on his fingers, on his keyboard, on his computer, on his internet connection, on my laptop, on my screen.

That's consciousness. The start of the causal chain.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:01 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:57 pm What you are measuring is the electromagnetic field.

No, what I am measuring is that which CAUSED the field.

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:57 pm That is electromagnetic field that carries information from me to you. There is no field of consciousness as you admitted, therefore, consciousness is not an emergent property since any property affects other things directly through its field.

Then what caused this electromagnetic field?
What caused the keys on your keyboard to push themselves?
What caused the muscles in your fingers to push the keys?
What caused the nerves in your hands to operate your muscles?
What caused the nerves to fire?

We are inside a loop of causality. Some neurons of my brain fires as a result of reading your text and that causes an electromagnetic field that spreads into my brain searching for a reply. There is a chain of firing until a thought comes to the conscious mind. I then start writing when thought is complete in the form of a sentence. The neurons inside my brain then fire and command to type of the sentence. This leads to the motion of my fingers and that leads to pushing the keyboard which this is also due to an electromagnetic field. The message is sent to you when I am done with my reply through electromagnetic field also. You read my replay and try to give your reply. So the loop becomes complete.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:06 pm
And I have EXPLAINED to you how to scientifically measure consciousness.

Consciousness cannot be measured, only the effects of consciousness can be measured.

.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:18 pmThat's consciousness. The start of the causal chain.

Absolutely.

The thing that wrote the book. Not the book.