Hello all,

I’ve heard a lot about approaches which are trying to draw a connection between “physical world” and “consciousness”. They all try to make a connection between some features of the physical things and consciousness. But as I can see we get all of our information through our mind (or consciousness) so how can one investigate what are real features of the physical things?

I mean that when you are discussing of a feature in a physical thing you are aware of that feature and therefore it is a part of your consciousness so it seems to be a part of your consciousness rather than a real physical feature.
Isn’t it so?

Nice thinking pilechian,

As I say before in my post, you must think radically. In a way, how from non-physical entity is made the physical.

Consciousness is concerned to be the non-physical missing link between the physical entities.



cheers

Dear Dragon

My point is that since our understanding is actually limited to our consciousness, it seems to me that we are actually trying to make a connection between two parts of the consciousness rather than physical things and consciousness. I strictly believe that this change in the definition of the problem is so useful for better understanding of its nature.

WYSINWYG

seems being the key word here. Yes, it may well seem like that for you, but so do many optical illusions, hallucinations and dreams.



In any event, the idea you are suggesting is not new; there is a long tradition in philosophy (spanning over two millenia) devoted to idealism and its consequences.

Dear Ludic_Dream

A. So I try to wipe out “seems” and rearrange my suggestions to be more logical:

1- Every piece of information you get, you are aware of that. So it is a part of your consciousness.
2- When we are talking about “features of the physical things”, we are talking about a piece of information which we think we know about physical things.

As a result when we are talking about “features of the physical things” we are actually talking about consciousness entities.

B. I’m fully aware that what I’m telling is very ancient idea. No argument about that.

C. But the reason why I suggest this is to change the definition of the problem of relating physical world to mind. As I’ve mentioned before this change in definition is so useful. For instance if we accept that we are trying to connect two parts of the consciousness together, the problem of different nature of the physical world and mind will be wipe out.

Where do the pieces of information (from 1 above) come from if not from something other than the consciousness we are aware of? And how would you explain subliminal information which we are not aware of yet which becomes indirectly part of our conscious awareness through its effects?

About investigating "real" features of the physical things, quite a bit has been said about this, with some claiming we can know the "real" features, either through representations of the will (Schopenhauer), or that consciousness itself is the real essence of things (Upanishads, Gita), or that the real features of things are mathematical (Spinoza) and hence accessible to our understanding.

The fact is that we have been stuck trying to explain consciousness through consciousness. This is obvious. The solution is not.

The way I think about the the physical world and our consciousness.

For me the physical world really exists.
We really exist, and I'm damned sure our thoughts exist.
We use our brains, both subconsciously and consciously, to construct 'models' or 'representations' of the real world (including our real selves and our real thoughts).
So all thoughts are no more than these representations.
When these representations are particularly close to the reality of the real world, we can be extremely successful in our real world interactions.
When these representations are poor or non-existent we have theories which need improving to be of better use in our understand of those aspects of the real world entities.
These representations we develop have no 'substance' in a physical sense, so they are not 'real' in the sense of the real world objects or rules themselves. Nonetheless, they are necessary blueprints of information about real world objects and rules (natural laws).
I cannot see any advantage to concluding that thoughts about external objects are more realistic than the objects themselves!
This does not mean that the posts above are wrong, just that my own experience and thoughts lead me to believe in my statements as adequately explaining what goes on.

I'm still amazed at times by our mental construction of our physical bodies. For instance, take a moment to reflect on one of your legs, and reflect on the fact that this experience of your leg, which feels very real and seems to be an object extended in 3D space, is just a mental construct, a mere hallucination of sorts. When you become aware of the constructive nature of all mental representations, you may decide to start deconstructing these representations, but when you begin to do so, the question invariably arises, "if we deconstruct all mental representations, what are we left with besides non-differentiated consciousness, which is not necessarily something terribly interesting in itself?" And how far can we take the deconstruction process? Do we deconstruct ourselves into non-consciousness?

Are there subcomponents of consciousness, like subatomic particles or energy? What about E=MC^2 wrt consciousness?

Consciousness could be considered to have two overall perspectives:

1. Its perception/interpretation of the external
2. Its internalization (or, itself)

How are these two aspects influenced by different regions of the brain, and how these regions work together? A good example are those areas concerned with speech and the unusual different aphasias when either Broca's or Wernicka's areas are damaged, and especially weird, how the mind works language behind these aphasias, and then how other minds interpret the output.

Dear Lucid_Dream,

A. Lucid_Dream wrote: “Where do the pieces of information (from 1 above) come from if not from something other than the consciousness we are aware of?”
Yes, there is so likely that there is “A real world” actually. It is hard to deny that But still what we are aware of, is our consciousness not any probable “real world”.

B. About subliminal information: may be you have to pay attention to the real argument I’ve made. I don’t argue that “there is not a real world”. This “real world” probably exists and has its own effect on us. What I claim is that “physical things we are aware of them, and we call them “real world” are not actual “real world” but are parts of our consciousness”. Therefore subliminal information is out of domain of my discussion. Actually I want to demonstrate that no philosophical theory (which is necessarily a part of consciousness of the philosopher who has constructed it) is able to relate “consciousness” to “real physical world”. What they are trying to do is to make a connection between two parts of the consciousness. It is so crucial because it emphasize that they are trying to connect two concepts which are in the same domain (Mind domain) not in two different domains (Real physical domain and Mind domain).

C. Lucid_Dream wrote: “We can know the "real" features”:
1 .Either through representations of the will (Schopenhauer): If we are conscious about our “wills”, it follows what I’ve discussed up to now. If not, they are subliminal and so follow B.

2. Consciousness itself is the real essence of things (Upanishads, Gita): Isn’t it somehow what I’ve said?

3. Real features of things are mathematical (Spinoza) and hence accessible to our understanding: How has he deduced that “Real features of things are mathematical“? It is so obviously a process in consciousness. (But thanks, I thought that Spinoza had just tried to explain moral principles through math).

D. I’m not exactly trying to explain consciousness using itself. What I’m trying to do now is to make it clear that we are actually trying to make a connection between two parts which are in the same domain (Mind domain).

how is this a non-trivial observation when it has been known for well over 2000 years that everything we perceive is of consciousness, and not of the thing itself in the "real world"? The "real world" is an extrapolation from our experiences and mental constructs, and assumes there is a coherence between the "real world" and our perception, and that things in the "real world" are based on observations that can be confirmed by other individuals. Do read Spinoza's "Ethics", as he has a lot to say on the issue of God, mind, and ethics that you would likely find of interest.

Dear Lucid_Dream

Ok. Let’s assume that any philosopher does know this very concept. So what’s your idea about the following sentences? :

“…Strawson, having wrestled his angel to a draw, stands revealed as a panpsychist: basic things (protons, for example) are loci of conscious experience. You don’t find that plausible? Well, I warned you.”
(From Jerry Fodor’s review on “Consciousness and Its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? by Galen Strawson and et al.”). (I cannot put web adress here but you can find it in recent post in david chalmers weblog.)

I don’t see any reason to think that here “basic things” are assumed to be a part in consciousness. Do you see?

Panpsychism (the view that everything has consciousness) is a counter to emergentism (the view that consciousness suddenly emerges in, or is associated with, only some things but not others). The assumption behind panpsychism is that consciousness must be a fundamental feature of reality, and hence is present in varying degrees throughout everything. The question is whether this is more plausible than one of the assumptions of emergentism; i.e., that it's possible for consciousness to be 'selectively' associated with certain realities but not others. One big problem with emergentism is trying to explain the conditions that give rise to consciousness (or that lead to its selective association with certain parts of reality but not others), whereas panpsychism assumes consciousness is ubiquitious, and instead has the task of explaining how the particular forms of consciousness are related to the particular parts of reality.

Btw, pilechian, you should be able to post links now.

This is much like the philosophy of George Berkeley:

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

The problem with panpsychism is that it doesn't account for why most of our mind is unconscious. Emergentism directly tackles that issue. It would seem that consciousness is a scarce resource to be allocated efficiently.

the standard reply to your objection is that all of our mind is conscious, which is a consequence of panpsychism (i.e., that everything is conscious), but that you don't have access to it.

So Dr. Freud's Unconscious is actually "conscious but inaccessible." That results in a conscious conscious mind and an unconscious but in accessible conscious mind. Too complicated by Occam's razor, and it still doesn't answer the question of why some parts are "accessible" and some parts are not.

Dear Lucid_Dream

I take PanPsychism as an example. I think PanPsychism is concluded because (1) we can not deny that we are conscious and (2) we are made (roughly) of some material (= flesh). They “seem” to be rational statements. But if you find it somehow odd that things as tables or etc. do have consciousness (as I found) it may lead you to perceive that what this “oddity” may actually mean and how it is related to our subject:

A. As before we accept that everything which we are discussing about is a part of our consciousness (and/or) even unconscious.

B. (A) Can somehow show that the real frame work we are working in is Mind (roughly), as a sum of consciousness and unconscious. (It is why I persisted on the same nature of two things we are trying to connect together).

C. My intuition and experiences tells me that if a theory sounds to be odd (in the way that it is seems to be unsatisfactory but even we don’t have any why it is) it somehow means that some fact about that theory is violating principles that our Mind (exclusive to every individual) has been based on. It simply means that any “oddity” (in the way that I described) is a violation of the framework (Mind). So if the theory sounds odd, it is its failure.

You may say that it’s too obvious. Yes I agree. But I’m putting emphasize on it to emphasize on the fact that prior to any discussion about consciousness or related things, we have to declare rules of our framework (which I suggest is the Mind). I mean that when we are using our Mind as a framework we have to declare some rules about “working outline” of the Mind. But we always declare parts of our Minds (pieces of information in our Minds as (1) and (2) are) as rules of our framework.

I don't think panpsychism is odd, or that the notion of a table being conscious is odd. Consciousness is a completely impersonal phenomena, much like the forces of Nature such as gravitation and electro-magnetism, which are ubiquitous. So why should we expect consciousness to be any different? If consciousness is akin to a fundamental force or property of nature, then it should be ubiquitous. The question is to what extent consciousness is a fundamental feature of Nature. The idea that consciousness magically 'emerges' seems much less plausible to me than that it exists everywhere and in everything. Granted, there are problems with determining what realities have access to what consciousness (i.e., why I'm not consciously aware of your consciousness or of a table's consciousness), but these problems are more acceptable than the big problem of getting something from nothing, which is what emergentism proposes.

Put mechanical power into a generator shaft, turning it, and you get electricity emerging. Put sugar into my bloodstream and you (I) get consciousness emerging. How is that odd?

The analogy can be literally true in the case of an unconscious patient in insulin shock. A glucose IV will wake him up.

I suppose everyone is asking about the exact details of the chemical phenomenon. With bioluminescence, we have atoms in an energized state emitting photons. With internal luminence, perhaps we have them emitting conscions. Neuroscientists, get to work!

but the electricity doesn't appear out nowhere. It's always there.

Dear Lucid_Dream

A. Ok. Let’s assume that conscious tables are not odd (though they still sound so odd to me).
As you mentioned in your post you are not consciously aware of a table's consciousness. So how do you know “a table's consciousness does exist”, when you are not “consciously aware” of that? I mean if you are not “consciously aware” of any aspect of consciousness of a table, which clue makes you conclude that that table is conscious?

B. I’m neither in favor of panpsychism nor emergentism. What I’m just trying to put emphasize on, as I’ve mentioned before, is the fact that when we are using our Mind as a framework we have to declare some rules about “working outline” of the Mind. But we always declare parts of our Minds (pieces of information in our Minds) as rules of our framework.

I have a different view. Take the case of a DC generator, the type of which Thomas Edison was fond. Suppose we connect a simple circuit of copper wire. The free electrons in the copper wire are always there, and when we turn the crank, the electrons begin to travel. However, before we turned the crank, there was no magnetic field around the wire. None at all. When we are turning the crank, a magnetic field is established and remains present and detectable. The magnetic field emerges in a manner (roughly, perhaps, perhpas not) similar to the way I imagine consciousness emerges from the electro-chemical activity of neurons.

that makes emergentism sound more plausible

Excellent! Maybe there could instead be an analogy with gravitons that are associated with an incredibly weak force and that might explain the seemingly very localized characteristic of consciousness (save telepathy that we all know is real!).

But consciousness is not localized! Non-locality is one of the well known properties of consciousness. The "atoms" of consciousness (qualia) have no "place" in the 3D physical world. The brain's neurons are local, of course, but not the consciousness they produce. Very mysterious, eh?

Dear all

You know, I don’t think that any of these analogies mentioned here could make clear what consciousness would be. Actually as these are parts of consciousness, you can not explain a whole concept using just some of its parts. You are reducing consciousness to some of its parts. We are better to search for more unusual explanations.

you make an analogy to magnetism, which is a localized field, and then claim consciousness is not localized. Trying to have your cake and eat it too?

Dear All

I agree with lucid_dream. Actually I think that if you want to define or explain consciousness you have to do that using something more fundamental than consciousness (and also understandable to human being). Does anyone have an idea what it would be?

Yes, of course. Magnetics is a physical thing, and consciousness is non-physical. At least there is no known physical explanation for consciousness. However, there is compelling evidence that it "emerges" from physical processes. For example, if we radically lower the blood sugar in a person with induced insulin shock, the person's consciousness collapses, just like the magnetic field collapses when the current in the wire is stopped. The physical analogy was intended to illustrate the concept of emergence as applied to consciousness, not to provide any physical "explanation" of consciousness.

That physical things have locations in physical space is clear. It's also clear that qualia are unlocatable in the physical system. What's not clear is the complete rule system for consciousness.

Yes, and of course I can see you hand-waving as you make these wild claims of magically emerging consciousness (ex nihilo nihil anyone?). And of course when you employ such language that suggests unwarranted certainty, it more often than not leads you down the wrong road. If anything, there is a wealth of evidence showing an identity between consciousness and structured neural activities, and since these neural activities are localized in space, it follows that consciousness is localized in space.

I don’t think that it is quite an analogy because natures of what emerge in these two procedures are different. One of them is localized but the other is not. It will become so critical because it so likely that nature of what emerges does have something to do with the procedure. I don’t think that any analogy could help us understand consciousness.

Just as with photons, your conscions ought to be detectable (pending a detection method being available) - so we will then have localized consciousness! Unless your conscions are further Schrodinger's animals and disappear into nonlocalization when you measure them!

Why exclamation point? It is so likely. When you become aware that you are conscious about something (somehow means that you have measured it) you have just added the former consciousness to the latter one. (I know that and I’m aware that I know that). So it is not what is has been before.
Why do you think our thoughts about something are always expanded when we think about that?

if we have to talk about analogies, what do you think about analogy between time and consciousness?

To me, it follows that the emergence process is localized. The product of that emergence, consciousness, is a completely different thing as it is only observable on the inside. I didn't mean to give the impression that I fully understand it.

That may be true. Might even be probably true.

That time is like consciousness or vice versa? The "flow" of time and of experience? I think time is a property of consciousness, not physics, but my view is nonstandard among physicists and also controversial among philosophers.

The right mathematical formulations can make time disappear from the physical equations. Physics then becomes a timeless set of "dynamic" relationships among objects, and time is something our minds construct, and which we can sense via consciousness. My view on this is still very primitive and incomplete, but I found that I am not the only one who has discovered this possibilty.

http://www.friesian.com/space-2.htm

Leibniz did not believe in space (he may be right) and Berkeley did not believe in matter (he's wrong). Also see

http://www.friesian.com/curved-1.htm

for more on space and time.

Exactly. It’s why I think that if we have to use an analogy, its better to use time. Let me tell something. I know that when I’m going to tell you that, I’m actually going to start a very deep discussion but never mind. Actually I ADMIT that what I’m concluding in the following lines IS TRICKY and NOT TRUE but let me just explain it. It’s worthwhile at least to hear that. You may find it interesting.

1) I think that we can sense time using our consciousness. I mean that as we can sense, for example colors by vision, we have then to have something to sense the time with. I think it is consciousness.
2) This fact somehow suggests that in our memories a sense of time is stored.
3) Now consider this fact that the mostly think casually. I mean that we try to connect cause and effect. When we connect these two pieces of information (cause and effect) which are stored in our memories, their stored senses of time are also connected to each other. But you have to consider that these two pieces of information are not likely to be stored in a chronological way. So we actually have a non-chronological sense of time when we are thinking. Its why we you are completely in Mind domain (dream) you have a completely changed sense of time. “You storage of time is chronological but you remembrance is based on cause and effect which is not necessarily chronological.”

If you accept that we do have different stage of consciousness when we are awake and when we are dreaming, you can see that how different types of connection between stored times in memory can make that. (Actually I prefer to use “Experience” rather than “Time”).

BUT I WARN YOU AGAIN: IT IS NOT TRUE!