Consciousness an emergent of the brain?

Johnny

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Hello everybody

Although being on this site a few weeks I am relatively new to all this consciousness science thingy, I have listen to the podcasts and read a number of transcripts,
But I am still not fully equipped to understand the depth of what is going on,

I have two questions, and a request

1; Is there proof, not evidence but proof that consciousness is an emergent of the brain?

2; what is meant by a peer reviewed article that states that consciousness is an emergent of the brain.

The request is to be linked to recent peer reviewed studies that suggest consciousness is not an emergent of the brain.

Thanks.
 
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Hello everybody

Although being on this site a few weeks I am relatively new to all this consciousness science thingy, I have listen to the podcasts and read a number of transcripts,
But I am still not fully equipped to understand the depth of what is going on,

I have two questions, and a request

1; Is there proof, not evidence but proof that consciousness is an emergent of the brain?
No there is no proof.
2; what is meant by a peer reviewed article that states that consciousness is an emergent of the brain.
That would be an article in a scientific journal. Many journals have other scientists review articles before accepting them for publication. Supposedly it insures only high quality research is published.
The request is to be linked to recent peer reviewed studies that suggest consciousness is not an emergent of the brain.

Thanks.

An emergent property is a property that cannot necessarily be predicted from the process from which it emerges. For example life is an emergent property of matter. Just by examining atoms you would probably not say that a human body is a property of matter, but biological organisms "emerge" from the properties of matter.

With biological life you can explain how living things work with biochemistry and it is not controversial.

However with consciousness, there is no explanation of how consciousness might emerge from brain function. There are correlations between mental states and brain states but there is no explanation of how subjective experiences could be caused. For example there is no explanation based on brain function of why blue looks blue, or why happiness feels the way it does.

More here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/08/consciousness-cannot-be-emergent.html

A better explanation of the role of the brain is that it is a filter of consciousness:
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/skeptical_fallacies#skeptical_fallacies_brain
 
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No there is no proof.

That would be an article in a scientific journal. Many journals have other scientists review articles before accepting them for publication. Supposedly it insures only high quality research is published.


An emergent property is a property that cannot necessarily be predicted from the process from which it emerges. For example life is an emergent property of matter. Just by examining atoms you would probably not say that a human body is a property of matter, but biological organisms "emerge" from the properties of matter.

With biological life you can explain how living things work with biochemistry and it is not controversial.

However with consciousness, there is no explanation of how consciousness might emerge from brain function. There are correlations between mental states and brain states but there is no explanation of how subjective experiences could be caused for example: why blue looks blue, why happiness feels the way it does, are caused by the brain.

More here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/08/consciousness-cannot-be-emergent.html

A better explanation of the role of the brain is that it is a filter of consciousness:
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/skeptical_fallacies#skeptical_fallacies_brain


So if there is no proof, how would you respond to somebody who throws up a few peer reviewed articles that aim ti claim that consciousness is an emergent of the brain?


Also thanks for the links, I will be sure to be reading the information in your blogs, very interesting, Thanks
 
So if there is no proof, how would you respond to somebody who throws up a few peer reviewed articles that aim ti claim that consciousness is an emergent of the brain?


Also thanks for the links, I will be sure to be reading the information in your blogs, very interesting, Thanks

I would probably not try to respond because it would not be likely to have any effect. What a person considers convincing evidence depends on his world view. Also, you can't win a debate unless there are independent judges because people don't change their mind based on evidence, they judge the reliability of evidence by whether it agrees with their strongly held beliefs or not. You can find threads on the forums here that have hundreds of posts that accomplish exactly nothing.

However if I did respond I would remind him that correlation is not proof of causation, I would ask for links to the journal articles so I could examine them, and I would ask him to explain in detail how his experience of what the color blue looks like emerges from brain function.

I would also point out the empirical evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_afterlife

But I wouldn't expect any of that to change his mind.
 
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So if there is no proof, how would you respond to somebody who throws up a few peer reviewed articles that aim ti claim that consciousness is an emergent of the brain?


Hello again, Johnny!

I would have to agree with Jim_Smith on this one and perhaps engage them with the rebuttal that correlation is not causation. As David Chalmers, a cognitive scientist and philosopher from the Australian National University points out is that you can see neural correlates of which part is activating in the brain when a person is asked to think about, say, moving their arms. You can see the activity in the motor control areas of the brain and the activity in the cerebral cortex so perhaps that means that is the thought/action itself, or the experience of the thought/action but also perhaps not. Perhaps we are seeing the brain respond as an interface. Perhaps we are seeing the brain respond to a higher order action and it is the interface in which a non-physical consciousness is able to communicate and interact with the physical. I think it is called the interface theory of perception, or the interface theory of the brain/consciousness. I'm not too certain on the perception one and that may very well be a different model.

If you have never heard of Professior Raymond Tallis then perhaps you would enjoy his lectures. He is a clinical neuroscientist and philosopher and his views on the brain and consciousness greatly differ from the status quo,


I saw this video through a link provided from an old forum member named Sciborg_S_Patel but he has since retired from being an active member, it seems. Perhaps he still lurks but who knows and I think this video is worth a watch.

EDIT: Corrected a typo/mistake that Smithy pointed out in regards to David Chamler's working at the Australian university. I had mistakenly put Austrian instead and as we all know.. that's an entirely different country lol
 
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My bad. It was called Consciousness and the Interface Theory of Perception by Donald Hoffman. Another good link also provided by our old resident wannabe philosopher Sciborg.
He provided us all with a lot of good reads and I suggest members go back and find his posts and catch up on some of the articles he provided.


Not to be confused with the member Psiclops, who also provides good links.
 
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So if there is no proof, how would you respond to somebody who throws up a few peer reviewed articles that aim ti claim that consciousness is an emergent of the brain?

I'm not sure if you're referring to an actual or hypothetical scenario but if the former would you kindly post links to the papers?
 
I would probably not try to respond because it would not be likely to have any effect. What a person considers convincing evidence depends on his world view. Also, you can't win a debate unless there are independent judges because people don't change their mind based on evidence, they judge the reliability of evidence by whether it agrees with their strongly held beliefs or not. You can find threads on the forums here that have hundreds of posts that accomplish exactly nothing.

However if I did respond I would remind him that correlation is not proof of causation, I would ask for links to the journal articles so I could examine them, and I would ask him to explain in detail how his experience of what the color blue looks like emerges from brain function.

I would also point out the empirical evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_afterlife

But I wouldn't expect any of that to change his mind.

There is some scientific evidence that due to brain structure some people are incapable of understanding the problem of consciousness.
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...esar’s-messiah-critics.611/page-18#post-66953
 
It's even questionable where living entities are explainable as emergent properties, because there is no way, from a materialist perspective, to explain self organization. To put this as a question to make it clearer: What creates the blueprint that determines how a normally essentially random process guided only by the known forces is somehow guided to grow from unspecific forms into very specific forms that are themselves capable of creating more of this specific form and also capable of self direction? It's the kind of mystery that is unexplainable from a materialist theoretical perspective.
 
Hi Johnny. There are oodles of papers providing evidence for consciousness not being local to the brain. You can follow the links here:

http://www.opensciences.org/papers

to get some idea of the scale of the evidence. But none of that constitutes proof. It's strongly indicative, but not absolutely conclusive. The only proof one can get would come through personal experience, and even if one's had a little of that, one might still retain a degree of agnosticism.

The evidence for emergence mostly relies on correlation between consciousness and brain activity, which nobody (including non-materialists), is denying. Good luck trying to find explanations of how electrochemical activity in the brain generates consciousness.;)
 
Hi Johnny. There are oodles of papers providing evidence for consciousness not being local to the brain. You can follow the links here:

http://www.opensciences.org/papers

to get some idea of the scale of the evidence. But none of that constitutes proof. It's strongly indicative, but not absolutely conclusive. The only proof one can get would come through personal experience, and even if one's had a little of that, one might still retain a degree of agnosticism.

The evidence for emergence mostly relies on correlation between consciousness and brain activity, which nobody (including non-materialists), is denying. Good luck trying to find explanations of how electrochemical activity in the brain generates consciousness.;)

+10
 
It's even questionable where living entities are explainable as emergent properties, because there is no way, from a materialist perspective, to explain self organization. To put this as a question to make it clearer: What creates the blueprint that determines how a normally essentially random process guided only by the known forces is somehow guided to grow from unspecific forms into very specific forms that are themselves capable of creating more of this specific form and also capable of self direction? It's the kind of mystery that is unexplainable from a materialist theoretical perspective.
I have no idea why you think this. What creates the "blueprint" is the process of evolution, as described by Marvin Minsky:

The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.
 
I have no idea why you think this. What creates the "blueprint" is the process of evolution, as described by Marvin Minsky:

The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.

Except some of us here have asked you repeatedly to explain how life began given your Darwinian beliefs regarding evolution and your spite toward any ideas that fall outside of it (such as Intelligent Design).

1. Paul here has never explained how the first amino acids magically sequenced themselves to make the first 100+ proteins necessary for even a single cell of life. He's never ever once shown us any statistical math based on his promissory note materialism. And you know why? He doesn't have a clue how life began. But he sure as shit insists he's right.

2. Paul has never explained how the cell - the complexity of which almost nothing else in our physical world matches - the complexity of which even Darwin had a kindergarten knowledge of, Paul has never explained how the cell came into being based on his Darwinian materialism. Not once on these forums. But he sure as shit insists he's right.

3. Paul seems to think undirected Natural selection increases genetic information. Actually it has been scientifically demonstrated the exact opposite occurs, random Natural selection DECREASES genetic information. And yet Paul still insists random undirected genetic processes coupled with natural selection has spontaneously created what we now know as the human brain and human consciousness.

These are all the claims Paul makes. But ask him for details and you won't get much from Paul on the scientific details. And you know why? Because he's sure as shit he's right.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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I have no idea why you think this. What creates the "blueprint" is the process of evolution, as described by Marvin Minsky:

The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.


I'm pretty sure he was referring to origin of life and how it emerged from non- living matter, rather than the process of evolution.
 
I'm pretty sure he was referring to origin of life and how it emerged from non- living matter, rather than the process of evolution.
Why do people think that evolution was not involved from the get-go? Notice how Minsky's process of evolution doesn't mention DNA.

Granted, a few lucky accidents had to happen first. But since no one has an "immaterial hypothesis" for how things got started, the constant harping on promissory materialism is disingenuous.

~~ Paul
 
Why do people think that evolution was not involved from the get-go? Notice how Minsky's process of evolution doesn't mention DNA.

Granted, a few lucky accidents had to happen first. But since no one has an "immaterial hypothesis" for how things got started, the constant harping on promissory materialism is disingenuous.

~~ Paul


The theory of evolution does not concern itself with the origin of life.

And the immaterial hypothesis beind the origin of life would be God.
 
,As Rutgers University philosopher Jerry Fodor says,

"Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness. "

Regardless of our knowledge of the structure of the brain, no one has any idea how the brain could possibly generate conscious experience. As Nobel neurophysiologist Roger Sperry wrote,

"Those centermost processes of the brain with which consciousness is presumably associated are simply not understood. They are so far beyond our comprehension at present that no one I know of has been able even to imagine their nature."

From modern physics, Nobel prize-winner Eugene Wigner agreed:

"We have at present not even the vaguest idea how to connect the physio-chemical processes with the state of mind. "

Contemporary physicist Nick Herbert states,

"Science's biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness. It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness; we simply have no such theories at all. About all we know about consciousness is that it has something to do with the head, rather than the foot. "

Physician and author Larry Dossey wrote:

"No experiment has ever demonstrated the genesis of consciousness from matter. One might as well believe that rabbits emerge from magicians' hats. Yet this vaporous possibility, this neuro-mythology, has enchanted generations of gullible scientists, in spite of the fact that there is not a shred of direct evidence to support it. "


The sort of materialism sceptics espouse is known as "promissory materialism", with its promise that some day we will be able to explain the mind in terms of the brain. The problem here of course is that "some day" never comes. Noble Laureate neuroscientist John Eccles and philosopher of mind Daniel Robinson wrote:

"We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists who often confuse their religion with their science. "

@Johnny. Don't take any crap from PAL (Paul, Arouet and his wife)
 
The theory of evolution does not concern itself with the origin of life.
It does to the extent that the origin of life involved evolution. Do you think that evolution was irrelevant until *poof* suddenly we had life as we know it?

And the immaterial hypothesis beind the origin of life would be God.
Or aliens. Or a simulation. Do you think this:

Suddenly god created life.

is more of an hypothesis than this:

Suddenly a few accidents occurred.


~~ Paul
 
The sort of materialism sceptics espouse is known as "promissory materialism", with its promise that some day we will be able to explain the mind in terms of the brain. The problem here of course is that "some day" never comes. Noble Laureate neuroscientist John Eccles and philosopher of mind Daniel Robinson wrote:

"We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation."

What is the difference between that quote and this one?

"We regard promissory immaterialism as superstition without a rational foundation."

While we are working on understanding how consciousness works, such quotes are equivalent and the first one amounts to:

I'm going to harp on promissory materialism because materialism bad.

~~ Paul
 
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