>Your consciousness is entirely caused by physical processes>This somehow allows for first person experience>Not only does it allow for experience, your consciousness is unified and confined to your brain in particular despite billions of other conscious brains existing simultaneously>Physicalists still maintain that this is completely expected of a world comprised purely of unthinking matterIs physicalism perhaps the most ridiculous cope in all of philosophy? Is this some elaborate joke on the part of those who genuinely hold this position?I am not even remotely religious but the mind is probably the most blatant example of a miracle we can observe, to deny this is just utterly bizarre
>>18453408I've seen physicalists on 4chan claim that rocks can theoretically develop consciousness
>>18453408>>Physicalists still maintain that this is completely expected of a world comprised purely of unthinking matterWhat's the contradiction? It can be possible to describe how consciousness works without describing why it works, that part is still a mystery
>>18453411If you're a physicalist while admitting that it's a mystery then there's still a hidden assumption that understanding physical processes well enough can solve it, but this seems implausible when experience is very clearly separate from the material processes that allow for it. Physicalism can explain anything that happens within the field of experience but not why there is a field to begin with - which doesn't even engage with the problem
>>18453408>>Not only does it allow for experience, your consciousness is unified and confined to your brain in particular despite billions of other conscious brains existing simultaneouslyYou silly person, this is a complete non-problem for physicalism. The vertiginous question is just dualists confusing themselves.>>18453449>but this seems implausible when experience is very clearly separate from the material processes that allow for it.Y'all never have an argument, you just handwave by saying something like "seems implausible." Tell me why it's implausible.
>>18453408>your consciousness is unified and confined to your brainThis is clear proof that consciousness is a physical process caused by fermions and thus subject to the Pauli exclusion principle, giving it discreteness.
>>18453408> >Not only does it allow for experience, your consciousness is unified and confined to your brain in particular despite billions of other conscious brains existing simultaneouslyYes? I don’t see the problem> >Physicalists still maintain that this is completely expected of a world comprised purely of unthinking matterMatter in the form of a nervous system thinks.
>>184534081. No. Shamanic trance states arent produced by chemicals, research has been done, aperwirk written. No chemicals found. Thus, there must be a spiritual component to life.One point if you have enough info, Op, and it all crumbles. There's no Brain caused DMT, we are informed by research.Now, fun and games, grab your phone, install: Ghost Tube apps, Ghostlink app.Have fun sperging at detections and practice self deceit claiming it must be some trick.
>>18453514>aperwirkLolPaperwork
>>18453514>research has been doneSource?
>>18453521Rick Strassman, MD
>>18453408I assume physicalists are often actually some variety of panpsychist, but they call themselves physicalists because they understand the meanings of the words differently. Either that or they're genuine philosophical zombies. It seems common for them to not really understand what "consciousness" means as used by nonphysicalists, so they believe it must be some complicated mental function like being able to conceptually represent your own mind to yourself or having all your senses smoothly integrated together by your brain, when it's actually (as I understand it) simply the raw fact of being a center of qualitative experience at all.
>>18453524He literally studied a chemical that acts as a neuroreceptor agonist thoughbeit?
>>18453526>being a center of qualitative experience"Centers of qualitative experince" do not exist, already deboonked by Gazzaniga the giganigga. Conscious processes are a decentralized patchwork.
>>18453531He studied any possible generation of DMT by the brain based off the notion that dince there's no Spirit a chemical must cause trance visioning.
>>18453533What I mean by it is something that undeniably exists, so what you're describing as a decentralized patchwork must be something else.
>>18453534Yes and that is what chemicals do, DMT merely activates shit that regular neurochemicals already do on their own.
i kinda don't see how this is cope - i mean of course we are confined to our own minds, we don't have any means of connecting to other minds.
>>18453536No, the "self" undeniably does not exist, it is a no-go impossible scenario, as proven by corpus callosotomy patients. Conscious processes are not unified into a "thing".
>>18453542Did I say "self"? No, I didn't. I even accept that by a certain interpretation the sense of self is contingent on a functioning brain. And if split brain patients actually have two qualitative awarenesses, that still wouldn't explain the mystery of qualitative awareness or force a physicalist explanation of it any more than you and I seeming to have two different qualitative awarenesses.
>>18453546We have two different "qualitative awarenesses" in the same way that two hemispheres of a split brain do. We're all constantly experiencing single-instance conscious processes caused by cortical activity which happens when synaptic pathways are triggered, the feeling of continuity is simply because the synapses have a contiguous medium to share information around and affect other separate synapses, which ceases when they're severed.
>>18453552>We have two different "qualitative awarenesses" in the same way that two hemispheres of a split brain doI don't think you can prove that both hemispheres of a split brain patient actually have qualitative awareness. One of them could be a philosophical zombie. But if there are always two qualitative awarenesses (consciousnesses from now on for simplicity), that would lend itself to an atomistic sort of pansychism in my view, where a person could have countless consciousnesses that are linked together such that each seems to be *the* consciousness until the brain breaks in a way that splits them apart. In other words, you can still understand this in a way where consciousness is something fundamental rather than something that mysteriously emerges out of solely physical processes.
>>18453560>something that mysteriously emerges out of solely physical processesThe word "mysteriously" is being used arbitrarily here. It's supposed to be a problem for conscious processes, but it's not for any other phenomenon? Why does spacetime warping "mysteriously" cause gravity to emerge? Why does a redox reaction "mysteriously" cause a fire? Why does aspirin "mysteriously" treat symptoms without us knowing the full pharmacodynamics? Consciousness is shit that happens when a cerebral cortex has specific neuronal activity.
>>18453560Alternatively, you could suggest that although the hemispheres are split so they don't share information, they do still share the same consciousness, and that would lend itself to a monistic sort of panypsychism where maybe you and I actually have one consciousness but we don't realize it because we're too informationally cut off from each other.
>>18453449That position is called Mysterianismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_mysterianism?wprov=sfla1
>>18453565>The word "mysteriously" is being used arbitrarily here.Gravity, spacetime, and redox reactions, fire, and aspirin are all unquestionably physical processes. Consciousness seems like a fundamentally different kind of thing, maybe the only fundamentally different kind of thing. The qualitativeness of it seems intrinsically incapable of being conveyed symbolically, and it doesn't seem like any symbolic description of purely physical reality could hope to really answer something like the vertiginous question.Idk, it's inherently to describe in words, but I'm about as confident as a person can be about anything that what I mean by consciousness is something fundamental, maybe something fundamental about spacetime itself or some kind of "consciousness field" rather than a spooky ghost that can detach from the body after death (though I find it hard to rule that out even admitting that the bulk of mental function in this life certainly depends on a healthy brain). But still something that must be understood as part of the essence of reality rather than something that just happens to be what we call it when a certain physical process is occurring.
Maybe for some physicalists, if they ever understand what the non-physicalists are on about, they'll be like, "Ohhhh that's what you mean!" and it will turn out to have been something they so thoroughly took for granted that they'll be amazed anyone thought to question it, or something like that.
>>18453588>Gravity, spacetime, and redox reactions, fire, and aspirin are all unquestionably physical processesWhy? We don't even know how they all fundamentally work.>Consciousness seems like a fundamentally different kind of thingBased on what?>The qualitativeness of it seems intrinsically incapable of being conveyed symbolicallyHow are we talking about it then? Frankly I think 90% of the hard problem is just the meta-problem wearing a Groucho mask. Consciousness fascinates us, but I don't that's grounds to claim it's not just made of the same crap as everything else.
This topic obviously overlaps with Hindu claims (especially Vedanta) and one thing I've learned from Hinduism is that the entirety of western intellectuals are functionally retarded when it comes to mind and should give up and go play video games instead. Everybody equates mind with consciousness. What I learned from Vedanta that I agree with wholeheartedly is that the mind is effectively a junction point with the senses, the ego, the intellect, and consciousness all connect to. The mind synthesizes all information and presents it in one complete package to consciousness, which is universal. We identify with the body, mind, ego, intellect, or senses, and in Vedanta enlightened sages identify with the consciousness. Ego is firmly identified with anything other than consciousness, and all experience is referenced to the ego, so if one touches upon consciousness in altered states of mind (as there are no altered states of consciousness) and no ego, no sense of me is felt in false identification, the assumption then arises that consciousness isn't a field or some kind of universal phenomena, and that everybody shares the same consciousness, but the ego of a particular body only continuing to experience the experience of that particular body means that consciousness can't be universal, their identification is entirely wrong. Also matter is preceded by consciousness, you can never logically prove any matter existing without consciousness, and the entire observable universes exists within consciousness. There is no situation where you could ever point to anything being real without consciousness first, including God.
>>18453538Keep going, there's the explanations needed as to why intrnse belief + intensive correct practice triggers religious schizo visions.>SourceMy own research, I'm afraid
>>18453408>your consciousness is unifiedNobody who studies brains actually thinks that.
>>18453408The most logical implication of physicalism is that some other material systems are also conscious to some degrre. Other animals for sure, but why not things like lakes, seas, more complex machines?
>>18453722Your consciousness is not unified but your first person experience is. You always feel like one mind, and always the same mind.
>>18453731Not really, no. You're just a low focus low insight individual so you've never noticed that unity of consciousness is a meme.
>>18453408Notice that you haven't present any arguments against it, just an appeal to incredulity and emotion.
>>18453476>This is a complete non-problem for physicalism. The vertiginous question is just dualists confusing themselves.And denialism is probably an even greater cope than physicalism.>Y'all never have an argument, you just handwave by saying something like "seems implausible." Tell me why it's implausible.I said it's implausible because we are basically just a bunch of atoms rubbing themselves together sequentially, subjectivity is not properly accounted for under these conditions, and every model of physics breaks down in face of the question.>>18453751The central argument is within the very nature of the question, if you can clearly recognize the distinction between mind and matter then that in itself is already an argument against physicalism because you're generating a concept, an inherently immaterial thing encased in your brain except it's not literally there. If I asked you to imagine a hexagon in your head would you expect me to cut open your skull and literally find one in there? Of course not, the question just poses why it even feels like anything to imagine and conceptualise. Countless people in this thread have misunderstood this problem already.
>>18453897>the question just poses why it even feels like anything to imagine and conceptualiseImagination isn't unique in "feeling like anything." All of your senses feel like something and it's just as mysterious that the information coming through your eyes and being translated into electrochemical signals in the brain looks like anything as it is that electrochemical signals generated more directly in the brain corresponding to things like "imagining a hexagon" looks like anything.
I've never seen a dualist do anything besides coping and seething when presented with obvious neurological facts. I was a dualist for over 10 years but I'm finally starting to understand that the physicalists are right.
>>18453408>Your consciousness is entirely caused by physical processesYep, there's overwhelming evidence for it (i.e. if I bash your skull your consciousness can be impacted)>This somehow allows for first person experienceIndeed. We're very used to a cartesian theater model which makes it non-intuitive at first but there's many theories which explain possibilities for this.>your consciousness is unified and confined to your brain in particularDo you also find it surprising that when I shit my poop comes out of my ass and not yours ?>of a world comprised purely of unthinking matterYou'd be surprised at how many things develop something which ressembles "consciousness" despite being non-humans.Frankly this whole debate is such a meme. The entire field amounts to essentially :>erm so we cant model consciousness with our current tech>that means our consciousness is ackshually spirits maaaan>>18453642lmfao it's always hilarious to see dualist shit themselves once they realize that their philosophy doesn't stand up to neurobiology>>18453897>bunch of atoms rubbing themselves together sequentially>subjectivity is not properly accounted for under these conditionsWhy do you think it's not possible ? >except it's not literally there>I asked you to imagine a hexagon in your head would you expect me to cut open your skull and literally find one in there? Of course notIt is and you can actually. If we had an entire model of the brain with a way to model the emerging phenomenal experience we could in theory do this. The problem is that so far we've simply not had the calculation power and accurate synaptic representation to to do so.
>>18453642>How are we talking about it then?We might not be. Mostly the trick is to gesture to it by saying things like "that common feature of experience which is incapable of being conveyed symbolically, you know the one" and hope that the other person both has that feature and has a mental map that allows space for it. 50% of the time, it works every time.
>>18454218Notice how nobody is claiming that physical processes are NOT correlated with consciousness here. Nobody doubts that when I bash your head in with a rock you will become impaired, the question is in regards to the existence of qualia or why any material is 'felt' at all.>>18454236Again, you are misunderstanding why it's a debate in the first place. I'm not even a dualist either. >Why do you think it's not possible ? Within this framework there's nothing stopping you waking up as a computer after you die, when you pass a certain level of complexity matter stops becoming matter and instead experience emerges necessarily. The reason why the vertiginous question even holds any weight is because consciousness is generated on a global scale yet you don't feel all of it - which is evidence that consciousness is not even required where there are brains generating perceptions making it non-necessary. While every brain is not comprised of identical substance, they all carry subjective experience which begs the question why only one is felt at a time.>It is and you can actually. If we had an entire model of the brain with a way to model the emerging phenomenal experience we could in theory do this. The problem is that so far we've simply not had the calculation power and accurate synaptic representation to to do so.Except there is no way to verify beyond a doubt that whatever the brain is doing results in a subject feeling the processes that occur within it. It's an impossibility because the only frame of reference you have is your own mind, you cannot inhabit another subject to confirm any of that, only replicate the processes that allow for it to hypothetically appear.The road you take to reach a location is fundamentally not the same as the location itself. You can trace down to an atomic level HOW the brain gives rise to feeling, but not WHY it has to be experienced as a result
>>18453408>>This somehow allows for first person experiencewhy wouldn't it?
>>18453408Any decent programmer can code decent simulations and many brain-like functions, just a bit simpler, and all of that is coming from a seemingly random arrangement of numbers. In theory, with enough processing power and a bit more effort, we can already code a very advanced brain-like program, the bigger challenge is to make this brain-like thing interact with the world in any meaningful way. That's why AI is so appealing, it's not actual intelligence but pattern recognition, and that is very valuable if we want to put those brain-like programs in real world scenarios, as they are already being put. So, if a random numbers can mimick conscience pretty well, what is to say that we aren't the same, just more complex? You humans tend to overestimate yourselves a lot, you nothing but animals that managed to succeed more than others for a while, but just like dinosaurs, you will be replaced.
>>18454389>You humans tend to overestimate yourselves a lot, you nothing but animalsIt's easy to believe that animals possess consciousness because consciousness is something very simple, not complex, and humans are biologically related to animals so it could easily be that whatever magic grants humans the capacity for consciousness is something we inherited from earlier animal ancestors. AI having consciousness is iffy because it depends on the assumption that the abstracted structure of a brain or something that can perform the behavioural functions of a brain is all that's necessary for consciousness to appear. But it may be that the substrate matters, not only the structure. For example, if there were something like a consciousness field, it may be that a very subtle molecular or even subatomic mechanism is involved in drawing that field out into the brain (or something like that), and an AI, although superficially capable of mimicking the brain in almost all ways, would miss that molecular or subatomic mechanism and so remain ultimately unconscious.
>>18454424>if there were something like a consciousness field, it may be that a very subtle molecular or even subatomic mechanism is involved in drawing that field out into the brain (or something like that), and an AI, although superficially capable of mimicking the brain in almost all ways, would miss that molecular or subatomic mechanism and so remain ultimately unconsciousWishful thinking
>>18454428It isn't really wishful or non-wishful thinking subjectively. Spooky detachable souls that survive death and go to heaven while keeping your earthly memories are my preferred brand of wishful thinking. More panpsychist accounts of consciousness are neither here nor there for me emotionally, except that something like them seems necessary.
>>18454347>they all carry subjective experience which begs the question why only one is felt at a time.Because consciousness is not a feeling like pain. I'm not very familiar with the vertiginous question but it seems to require a bizarre understanding of consciousness as a feeling that one ought to have based upon its existence.>but not WHY it has to be experienced as a resultYou're mixing the problem of induction with the impossibility of modeling causal links between the brain and experience. If we are indeed able to fully model the brain and make an iteration of it, I suspect we will be able to see the causal dynamics behind consciousness, which would the explain the "why" of the hard problem. The problem is that it's simply impossible as of yet to determine which theory is true. Both materialists and dualists have hypotheses but none can test it.Personally, I believe that consciousness arises from semantical capacities, with the ability to identify certain things. Coupled with an innate sense of continuity to produce the "I" alongside sensual perception, this leads to subjective perception.
>>18454424In line with this, I wonder if the belief in conscious AI might not be unlike believing that running a sufficiently thorough computational model of fire on your computer will inevitably cause the computer to catch fire.
>>18453408The idea of the mind is also the mind’s idea of the mind
>>18454424>humans are biologically related to animals Humans are animals.>whatever magic grants humans the capacity for consciousness is something we inherited from earlier animal ancestorsNeurons vastly predate humans, and many high-level behaviors have distant antecedents. Even Cnidarians, who don't even have a central nervous system, have been shown to have sleep-like states.
There is too much confusion on this topic. Consciousness experiences, mind synthesizes experiences.Consciousness can not be conscious of itself, so we theorize there is some thing that is experiencing but we can't directly observe it.
