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The Hard Problem of Consciousness

“I don’t believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is too small.”


— Terence McKenna

I tend to appreciate the quote. While I don't have much to go on besides the complexity of the variety of nervous system apparatus(es?) available to us, I think the employment of a machine is more likely to control the flow of consciousness as opposed to generate it. I do mean the brain is the machine that controls how much consciousness or perceived mindfulness is emanating.

EDIT: soz im poorly worded. A very popular opinion amongst evolution buffs and neuroscience aficionados is that consciousness is more illusory than what any of us have realized. Given i don't always buy presuppositions for this argument, one being the origin of consciousness is a side effect of a series network of neurons, I am more convinced that consciousness is generated outside of the human skull not entirely unlike a fabric that has pooled around the universe for a long time, and depending on the complexity of an organisms "brain" if you will, we perceive what seems to be functional sentience.

That is to say, I find the idea of the brain more of an articular, a kind of mouth piece for an already existing (and infinite as far as I can guess) consciousness.

0 scientific evidence to back this idea up sorry, take it with a grain of rice.
 
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Hey Nixiam! How's it going man, long time no see! :)

I agree with you. I also believe that consciousness exists outside of the physical machinery, and that brains simply provide a focus for it, a set of parameters.
 
Hey! Doing really well, thanks :D How's you?!

What I like best about this subject is that I'm most free to be experimental with my observations given how little is known.
 
Yeah can't nobody tell you what's what in topics like these. We're all just making our best guess. :)
 
Has anyone read Chalmers' newer book "Metametaphysics" ? I bought that last month but haven't read most of it yet. Well, actually it's a collection of essays by several people, and edited by Chalmers and some others.
 
^ I have read several entries, but not the entire book. My favourite one is 'On What Grounds What' by Jonathan Schaffer. (The other entries I have read are the ones authored by Huw Price, Amie Thomasson and Stephen Yablo - I enjoyed all of them.) Are you interested in analytic philosophy? The essays in that book are definitely aimed primarily at academic philosophers. That doesn't mean that those who are unfamiliar with analytic metaphysics can't get anything out of reading it, but I think the discussion would make more sense if you are at least loosely familiar with the work of Rudolf Carnap and Willard Quine.

It's nice to see people taking an interest in what academic philosophers have to say. I will be interested to hear how you find it. :) What entries have you read so far, and what did you think of them?
 
^ I've read at least most of the chapter "The question of ontology", where there's much use of formal set theory without ambiguous definitions in natural language (of course those are necessary in most philosophical writing). I've also read some other stuff here and there.

I think there's a lot of very interesting stuff in the book but it requires an appropriate mood state to have the energy to digest it all.
 
Kit Fine is an extremely rigorous and interesting philosopher. He has done a lot of work giving semantics for various non-classical logics and his philosophical work often employs various formalisms. I suspect that approach to answering philosophical questions is appealing to you, given your background in mathematics. Encountering philosophers who approach their subject matter in such a precise and rigorous manner is what made me fall in love with analytic philosophy.
 
I had a bit of an epiphany regarding consciousness and immediately googled my thoughts, everyone had the same epiphany last year.

My greatest understanding comes during meditation when I am thinking less and shutting consciousness down to its lowest level. If my understanding of concepts and ideas is clearest when consciousness is reduced could it be possible that consciousness was in fact a symptom of a disease or virus that was robbing my mind of its natural ability and forcing me to think constantly.

A current scientific theory is our consciousness was viral at some long point in our past.

If I consider emotions and repetitive thoughts like ptsd as the symptoms of consciousness it may shed light on why near death moments are so powerful and where the appeal for drugs that shut consciousness down come from. We are actually fighting to feel normal and reconnect with ourselves as the animal.

There was a flurry of articles about consciousness being an ancient virus most seemed like a press release but a few branched out and discussed where in the brain these effects were noticed and how they varied in autistic brains.

A long read with plenty of links onward.

This piece in the nytimes links to the original study and is more detailed about the genetic implications of viral DNA in the human genome. It is well grounded and doesn't draw far fetched or exotic conclusions.
 
cyberius said:
Ah this was a good one, read about this in the past.

Papers like these are why I'm getting a neurobiology degree.
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Good luck with that.

I'd call it extremely sophisticated reacting using logos and patterns to decode and encode "conscious thought".
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"Extremely sophisticated" lol Conscious thought also relies on the limbic systems, extra pyramidal etc - it. Brain systems and networks function as a whole, we are still discovering more and more and finding out how little we actually know.

Why do we act the way we do? Our behavior evolves as a baby and we apply invisible layers of psychological processing to empirically compete.
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Who/what applies 'invisible' layers? Psychological processing occurs within the brain through feedback and processing by the nervous system throughout the body - many processing centres involved, including the enteric and other systems. It is true that plasticity occurs across the lifespan with critical periods known, during infancy and adolescents - vast neuronal decay/pruning also occurs during these periods.

Executive function is the most inquisitive thing of all because it seperates us from animals.
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We are animals, albeit, with a different forebrain. Sorry to rain on the exceptionalism hypothesis but other animals exhibit executive functioning skills, also.

Our ancestors must of gotten pretty fucking self conscious or devestated to have developed such a mental perversion that can only be described as "thought"
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What? "mental perversion" ? Other animals process thought! Oh, thanks for the laughter

I don't think it'll be long before we figure this out personally.
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Figure 'what' out?
 
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Consciousness seems to appear from out of mass or matter--which is of course interchangeable with energy and can never be created or destroyed, only transformed--just like a moving electrically charged particle causes a magnetic field.
 
I believe consciousness is the base state of the universe, that the universe is a being (or perhaps it is the being) and we are all its dreams to keep it (ourself really) company in the timeless dimensionless void. We are all the universe experiencing itself subjectively. It is definitely present in animals too, I believe to some small degree at least in all life, including plants, but certainly in many larger mammals without a doubt if you've ever gotten to know an animal. I don't understand what it is exactly that creates that, though. Would a robot that acted in every way and computed solutions and draw connections from the data it was taking in become sentient, as in, actually be having an experience that was observed? I don't know but the question is fascinating to me.
 
The universe is mental. All is mind the universal mind. Consciousness is what gives rise to everything else its in everything even the elementary particles. There is no escape from consciousness it is eternal
 
Rather than consciousness, I would use the word awareness. Awareness seems to be a fundamental property of the universe, whereas ego is a property of certain kinds of life. The two are not the same. Awareness doesn't seem to change, but is required for all the other emergent properties of consciousness to function because they all use core awareness as the prime referent. In other words, consciousness and all of its mutable qualities can't function without the primacy and permanence of awareness. Awareness is so ubiquitous and original to all other consciousness properties that the mutable layers (like ego) take it for granted.

Could a rock have awareness? A breeze? A particle? Is everything in the universe aware?

This seems to resolve the conflict of the easy and hard problem. The emergent properties of the brain create consciousness qualities indicative of the meat which can be said to be the sum of the parts. Awareness, however, is in every part and also in the whole. Infinity + infinity = infinity, or null + null = null.

The functions of consciousness are predictive, meaning that the consciousness projects a prediction of itself which manifests in a self-reaffirming way. Self begets self. This all takes place in the foreground of awareness which is primary, original, and static. Whether you're having the best day of your life, dying, or in a k-hole, awareness is just awareness.

But it also seems that this awareness, while being ubiquitous, is also individuated. It has resonance and dissonance, which implies a binary, which means that the individuation is purposeful. In other words, there is resonance to be this, but try to be something else would cause dissonance. This resonance/dissonance is not a function of ego, it seems to exist all on its own. It's not merely "preferences", which are in the experience level, and awareness is not experiencing anything. It is some kind of cosmic state. To use an analogy, Brahman has many faces, Brahman wants to play as this unique chord and does not want it to play any other chord; yet every chord playing is part of the same symphony of awareness. "Want" is not accurate either. Awareness does not desire.

I have a hard time reconciling the core awareness involved in the hard problem with the individuation of form. It seems like at the end of the day, every system that tries to address this, whether spiritual, philosophical, or scientific, ends up encountering this duality. Is it a wave or a particle? Is it oneness or a collective? Is it infinite or finite?
 
" I exist, therefore I am" always resonates with me. Who am I to question the bigger picture? Cool if you feel you need to but for me I just accept my part as a pawn in the most fucked up game the universe has or will ever see.
 
What a thoughtful thread. I love stuff like this.

I think I have simplified this for myself after going round and round. It is either matter creates consciousness or consciousness creates matter. 50/50. It could go either way. :D Sort of like the odds of winning the lottery are 50/50. Either you do or you don't. lol (too simplified?)
 
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