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But in the end it is nothing more than a label we put on one of the plethora of subjective reactions we have to our environment.
".... a label we put...."?
What the heck is putting a label on anything? A piece of dead silicon sand?
You guys are a scream. Both of you think so highly of yourselves yet neither of you have even the most rudimentary understanding of the problem of consciousness. Would you mind terribly if we just stop this discussion. It's killing me.☺
You are welcome to stop any time you like, you do not need my consent to do so, you merely have to stop replying. To be honest you have stopped the discussion a long time ago as none of your replies appear to reply to anything I have actually said, but constant straw men versions of it.
Again: Things like Beauty and Color are labels we, as conscious beings, are putting on our subjective reactions to our environment. They are not things that exist in and of themselves.
You are welcome to stop any time you like, you do not need my consent to do so, you merely have to stop replying. To be honest you have stopped the discussion a long time ago as none of your replies appear to reply to anything I have actually said, but constant straw men versions of it.
Again: Things like Beauty and Color are labels we, as conscious beings, are putting on our subjective reactions to our environment. They are not things that exist in and of themselves.
Ok. There it is consciousness. How do you suppose consciousness arises out of a non-living, dead concoction?
Careful. Are you about to give a scientific answer OR a philosophical one? This is what I've been waiting for!
Not very good at stopping conversations you want to stop are you.
The explanation of consciousness is currently one that evades us. We simply do not know. Everything we do know simply suggests it is an emergent function just like any other in our system, like digestion.
It is not, by far, the only thing our species is ignorant about. There are many questions we have not answered, and may never. Which divides our species into two groups. Those that are happy to acknowledge that fact. And those that can not stand it and simply make stuff up instead. Hence "The God Of The Gaps".
Not very good at stopping conversations you want to stop are you.
The explanation of consciousness is currently one that evades us. We simply do not know. Everything we do know simply suggests it is an emergent function just like any other in our system, like digestion.
It is not, by far, the only thing our species is ignorant about. There are many questions we have not answered, and may never. Which divides our species into two groups. Those that are happy to acknowledge that fact. And those that can not stand it and simply make stuff up instead. Hence "The God Of The Gaps".
Exactly. Consciousness and consequently the evolution of consciousness is for the time being (and I believe forever) within the purview of philosophy. Anyone who attempts to discuss the nature of consciousness and its evolution is philosophizing.
My thoughts are more in line with Whitehead's and most especially Bergson's. Both suggest that Consciousness out as I prefer it, Creative Intelligence, is fundamental. There is no scientific way to refute it. One can only take a different philosophical point of view.
I reject " emergent consciousness" because it simply adds a bit of magic to the whole discussion. However this bit of magic is a 100% necessity for those who insist on a materialistic point of view. In other words, emergent philosophy is simply an outgrowth of the desire to make material fundamental? But then there is the issue that quanta and a fundamentally material universe simply do not mix. This the Really Hard Problem of materialism.
If you define "philosophy" as being nothing more than navel gazing at our ignorance then sure, it is in the realm of philosophy. I define philosophy in other ways than this however.
That said however you should not conflate us not having final answers with us being entirely ignorant either. We do not understand everything about consciousness sure, but we are not 100% ignorant either. We know many things about its operation and activity. And at this time 100% of what we DO know points to it being merely an emergent process of our biology. 0% of it puts it into the realm of the magic theists are selling us. So you might want to claim it for some weird definition of philosophy, but it also falls under the purview of science and scientific inquiry too.
What I do reject is the assertion of the gaps kind of arguments. Where people like yourself merely gravitate towards human ignorance like a fly to a corpse, and simply start making things up. Inventing narratives you find pretty and stuffing them into the gaps in our knowledge. That is neither science NOR philosophy. That is just fantasy.
Nothing wrong with fantasy per se of course, until some people start thinking their fantasies are fact for no other reason than they find them appealing.
If you define "philosophy" as being nothing more than navel gazing at our ignorance then sure, it is in the realm of philosophy. I define philosophy in other ways than this however.
That said however you should not conflate us not having final answers with us being entirely ignorant either. We do not understand everything about consciousness sure, but we are not 100% ignorant either. We know many things about its operation and activity. And at this time 100% of what we DO know points to it being merely an emergent process of our biology. 0% of it puts it into the realm of the magic theists are selling us. So you might want to claim it for some weird definition of philosophy, but it also falls under the purview of science and scientific inquiry too.
What I do reject is the assertion of the gaps kind of arguments. Where people like yourself merely gravitate towards human ignorance like a fly to a corpse, and simply start making things up. Inventing narratives you find pretty and stuffing them into the gaps in our knowledge. That is neither science NOR philosophy. That is just fantasy.
Nothing wrong with fantasy per se of course, until some people start thinking their fantasies are fact for no other reason than they find them appealing.
What I object to is a person rolling out the magic of emergent consciousness and hiding it under the cover of science.
A story is a story is a story. I have mine and you have yours.
The two stories:
1) Conscious Creative Intelligence is fundamental.
2) Material is fundamental (which means quanta is material) and consciousness somehow (we have no idea how) emerges from it.
Let the philosopher pick their starting point of Evolution and defend it. I have absolutely no problem defending mine. In fact it is darn easy.
Except no one is rolling out anything on my side. I am merely offering you an observation of what the current state of our knowledge suggests on the matter. I offer you no conclusions, claims, or positions, or stories. I am merely telling you that while our understanding of consciousness is incomplete.... everything in our current understanding of it suggests one thing and one thing only.
That is simply the current state of the actual evidence. Perhaps new evidence will be forthcoming which will suggest, or lend credence, to some other claim. I am in no position to say. But commenting ONLY on the current data set it is clear that 100% of what we understand at this time shows human consciousness to be an emergent attribute of the processes of the brain.
You are free to fantasies other possibilities, and what the evidence may turn out to be for them. But at THIS TIME you have no such evidence for any other position.
And if the process of evolution produced and created this thing we call consciousness, then to return full circle to my actual point which you have been dodging, misrepresenting and now derailing for days now.... there is no arguments, no evidence, no data, and no reasoning (much less from you) to suggest that process of evolution ITSELF is intelligent or intentional, or was run or created or instigated by an intelligent or intentional agency.
If there was you likely would have presented it by now, in place of this "I find it all so funny" rhetoric you have been using as post filler instead.
Except no one is rolling out anything on my side. I am merely offering you an observation of what the current state of our knowledge suggests on the matter. I offer you no conclusions, claims, or positions, or stories. I am merely telling you that while our understanding of consciousness is incomplete.... everything in our current understanding of it suggests one thing and one thing only.
That is simply the current state of the actual evidence. Perhaps new evidence will be forthcoming which will suggest, or lend credence, to some other claim. I am in no position to say. But commenting ONLY on the current data set it is clear that 100% of what we understand at this time shows human consciousness to be an emergent attribute of the processes of the brain.
You are free to fantasies other possibilities, and what the evidence may turn out to be for them. But at THIS TIME you have no such evidence for any other position.
Fine. Science has no answers about the evolution of consciousness and takes no position. This is what I stated earlier. This is all within the providence of philosophy for now and I believe forever. Consciousness cannot be seen or measured by instrumentation. That is what makes it such a hard problem. Ditto with quanta, since by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, one cannot observe quanta without changing it.
The Philosophy of Evolution can now be discussed as a philosophy and I have stated the starting point of my model. Creative Intelligence is fundamental.
Fine. Science has no answers about the evolution of consciousness and takes no position. This is what I stated earlier. This is all within the providence of philosophy for now and I believe forever. Consciousness cannot be seen or measured by instrumentation. That is what makes it such a hard problem. Ditto with quanta, since by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, one cannot observe quanta without changing it.
You appear to have some fundamental problems with both reading comprehension and physics.
I would argue that what Nozz actually said is closer to this:
"Science has no full and complete answer about the evolution of consciousness, but can and does take takes a position based on the evidence available."
And that position currently would be that consciousness, however we choose to try to measure that, appears to be related to the nervous system, the brain in particular. Furthermore, it appears to be related to the structure of the brain, the organization of those neurons, as well as the size and complexity of the brain.
Secondly, you keep using "quanta" in a very odd way. You do understand that there is no such thing as a standalone "quantum"? It isn't a particle or a field, it is simply the smallest amount of something, a physical property, that is able to exist. So a photon is a "quantum" of light, it is the smallest discrete manifestation of the electromagnetic field.
Likewise, the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle does not say we cannot measure something without changing it, that is the observer effect (similar but not the same). The Uncertainty principle says that, due to the basic nature of wave mechanics, sharply determining one variable, forces the other to be less precise. Thus, if we can precisely determine the position, we cannot exactly know the momentum and vice versa. This is kind of similar to the difference in signal processing between the time and frequency domain. If I localize a signal in time, a sharp impulse, its frequency response is infinite, likewise if I localize in the frequency domain, such that I have a single frequency, in the time domain that signal is infinitely long.
-NoCapo
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