Posted by John Tchoe on June 22, 19101 at 02:41:50:
In Reply to: Re: Consciousness IS the brain? posted by Noctillucent on June 21, 19101 at 23:13:34:
<JT>I apologize for the long post. I just kept adding tangents. I hope you can sort out the relevant points, and follow up on the tangential, but interesting points in a separate thread.</JT>
: [I]I think what is ill-defined here is consciousness. We all know what the brain is, and what is not the brain.[/I]
: I would argue otherwise. I definitely know what consciousness is. I AM conscious, so I cannot be mistaken as to its reality. Consciousness is simply what it’s experienced to be.
<JT>While I agree that there is no possible way to deny one's own consciousness--the demonstration itself would prove that one is conscious!--to define a consciousness is a different task altogether. It's tricky, but necessary if we are to speak intelligently of consciousness as an object.</JT>
:A thought consists of its thinking, a feeling of its being felt, and a perception of its being perceived.
<JT>I would describe a thought, a feeling, and a perception as physical phenomena within the brain. The conscious experience of each of those things are phenomena within a specific portion of the brain.</JT>
Obviously there cannot be an un-thought thought, an un-felt feeling, or an un-perceived perception, anymore than there can exist an un-A A. Such is not logically possible.
<JT>There can however, be an unconscious thought, and unconscious feeling, an unconscious perception. Psychological experiments have shown that people can learn unconsciously.</JT>
: It’s physical objects I have trouble with. Not only do I not know ‘where’ they are, I don’t even know ‘what’ they are.
<JT>Sure you do. You become aware of, perceive, and identify them.</JT>
Unless physical things take the form of an idea or percept, I can know nothing of them.
<JT>This is a mere truism. Here you're trying to separate inseparable concepts. Allow me to translate:
"Unless I think of or perceive a physical thing, I can know (perceive or think) nothing of them."Thi</JT>
And ideas and percepts are not physical things.
<JT>Sure they are. They're represenatations within the brain of external objects. What gets to be really odd is when you consider a brain containing a model f the brain!</JT>
Physical objects, then, would appear to be nothing more than negations – an unpicturable darkness - and nothing real can consist of a negation. In any case, physical things themselves explain nothing, which would be the only reason for positing their existence in the first place.
<JT>I have absolutely no idea what you mean here. Please clarify</JT>
Only ideas have the power to explain, and no idea is a physical thing.
<JT>I'll put it the simplest way I know how: If there is no brain, there can be no idea, no such thing as ideas; (however, a brain can exist without ideas in it). Ideas physically exist within the brain. When you encounter an idea, or formulate one, you are creating new patterns within your own brain. But it's a fallacy to claim there are ideas "out there."</JT>
: [I]Another person's consciousness is like a black hole, which cannot be directly perceived, only inferred by its effects.[/I]
: True.
<JT>I'll have to refine my statement a bit. The experience of consciousness, or being conscious, if you will, cannot be directly perceived. However, in the future we may create technology which can map a brain in real-time, and then we will directly see a consciousness. What's really scary is when we become able to directly input data into the consciousness.</JT>
: Why can’t consciousness exist apart from matter? If the physical world suddenly vanished, and all else remained the same, would you know of it? Could you know of it?
<JT>Ah, NOW we're getting to the core of the issue. If the physical world suddenly vanished...would that include my physical body? If not, I would suffocate for lack of oxygen, freeze in vacuum, and who knows what else. If it included my physical body, I wouldn't exist to know it. My consciousness is contained within my physical body.
I think you believe otherwise. If not, I'm not sure what we've been talking about.
Consciousness (here is where our definitions of "consciousness" diverge) cannot exist without the medium on which it is contained, i.e., the brain. Perhaps some day we will be able to transcribe consciousnesses on hard drives for later retrieval. In this case, while the physical medium may have changed, that a consciousness exists in/on a physical medium has not. If it's erased, it's GONE. It no longer exists.
This is the sense in which I said consciousness is the brain.</JT>
It’s an intelligible idea, which is all that’s required for its possibility.
<JT>I have to tentatively disagree with this idea. You're basically saying, if you can imagine it, it can exist. In what sense do you mean it can exist? How much evidence is required before we ume that something is true or untrue? If there's no physical evidence for, and nothing in one's experience gives one logical cause to believe a given claim, can the simple wish for it to be true lend it existence? In this case, we are talking about consciousness outside of the physical brain.
I think when my brain shuts down, that's it. I'm DEAD. My consciousness no longer exists.
More on the claim of ideas=reality. Your consciousness is a pive partner with reality. Your ACTIONS change reality, but your consciousness cannot directly change what's out there. You can close your eyes to something, but it will still be there. If you BECOME CONSCIOUS of something new, you're not CREATING it, it's always been there.
This is not knowledge we're born with. It is known as object permanence, which toddlers learn. It is why babies find the game of peek-a-boo so fascinating. They believe, when Mommy covers her face with her hands, that she literally ceases to exist.
If we were so separate from physical objects as you claim, if we know nothing but what we're consciously aware of, then we could in fact, by closing our eyes, make things cease to exist. Try that the next time you're crossing a busy intersection.</JT>
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