Consciousness and the brain as a filter - Some questions

bishop

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I would like opinions on the questions below. This is just a starting point, and I'd like to pursue some other lines of inquiry after I get a sense of where people are coming from. If you don't feel like answering the questions with some directness that's fine, but I would very much appreciate that the thread not be derailed with some other type of generalized commentary.

For clarification I'm using the dictionary definition of consciousness (1+2 especially), but if you have some other way to describe what it is please feel free to explain.

1. Is consciousness a "post filtered" event? By this I mean is consciousness the experience we have after it has been received and processed by the brain?

2. Is there something other than this (#1), and what are some examples of it?

3. Is there a correlation between the brain and consciousness?

4. Do changes in brain state, via alteration, damage, or any other kind of event affect consciousness?

5. The very existence of consciousness seems to be the go-to phenomenon when arguing against a materialist position. Are there any other tangible examples of something that is not physical in nature (and not related to consciousness) that carries the same weight?

Thanks and looking forward to your responses.
 
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5. The very existence of consciousness seems to be the go-to phenomenon when arguing against a materialist position. Are there any other tangible examples of something that is not physical in nature (and not related to consciousness) that carries the same weight?
Sure: matter itself is not physical the way materialists conceive it to be. This was established early on in quantum physics studied and discovered by such scientists as Heisenberg, Bohr, Schrodinger, Von Neumann even Einstein - almost a hundred years ago. And since then been corroborated by many physicists and scientific experiments.

And then there have been the psychologists using the science of psychology - who have studied consciousness - and not just examining the neuronal functioning of the brain, but the supposed purely "subjective" part of our awareness. And they have obviously found empirical evidence in consciousness, that falls far outside a simplistic Newtonian materialistic model of reality. This however religious Skeptics dismiss and deride as "woo".

Skeptics regarding QM, well the current running argument by Skeptics is that those of us who disagree with their materialistic faith, and point to QM - just don't understand QM. Which is amazingly naive.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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1. Is consciousness a "post filtered" event? By this I mean is consciousness the experience we have after it has been received and processed by the brain?

According to the filter model, usually yes.

2. Is there something other than this (#1), and what are some examples of it?

ESP phenomena: according to the filter model, ESP is an experience that reaches our consciousness without being filtered by our nervous system, a "failure" in our filter if you prefer.

3. Is there a correlation between the brain and consciousness?

According to the filter model, usually yes.

4. Do changes in brain state, via alteration, damage, or any other kind of event effect consciousness?

Usually yes.

5. The very existence of consciousness seems to be the go-to phenomenon when arguing against a materialist position. Are there any other tangible examples of something that is not physical in nature (and not related to consciousness) that carries the same weight?

I do not know.
 
5. The very existence of consciousness seems to be the go-to phenomenon when arguing against a materialist position. Are there any other tangible examples of something that is not physical in nature (and not related to consciousness) that carries the same weight?

.

There are lots of things that are non-physical in essence - basically the whole of human culture!

For example, is Beethoven's fifth symphony physical? Well you need physical instruments to play it, and you need physical paper (or computers) to store it, but are these the essence of what people mean when they refer to this music?

Most cultural artifacts are like this - from scientific theories, to poetry, to films.

These are, of course, passive non-physical objects, but even so, they are striking. Indeed, I would say that most of the things that occupy our minds are non-physical.

Sceptics could dismiss this observation, but I think it is telling us something relevant.

David
 
Most cultural artifacts are like this - from scientific theories, to poetry, to films.
I was just reading today of a post-impressionist painting being sold for a new record-breaking price. Now that's certainly a physical object which is being bought and sold. And one could easily argue that the financial value is somewhat of a joke, it is more in the realm of a stock-market investment than value as art. It can be copied of course, and I believe there is a thriving industry for those who paint facsimiles of artworks all day long. But for me the value is not in what the image is now, today, but in what it represented at an instant in time. At some stage, major works of art are ground-breaking, influential. The significance as I see it is the role in the history of ideas, which is a non-physical construct. Then the wheel turns and some other creative act is at the leading edge. There is fluidity, the ideas themselves move and shift with time and place. Artistic inspiration and creativity is itself almost a living thing, transcending any one person or any physical instance.
 
For example, is Beethoven's fifth symphony physical? Well you need physical instruments to play it, and you need physical paper (or computers) to store it, but are these the essence of what people mean when they refer to this music?

But there is a confusion here: physicalism -the modern materialism- does not claim that everything that exists is physical, but that everything that exists is physical or supervenes logically to the physical. The music supervenes logically to the physical (except perhaps the very experience of sound), so that's not a problem for physicalism.

Rather than focus on materialism, if consciousness is physical or not, etc., I prefer to approach the empirical study of psi and afterlife.
 
I would like opinions on the questions below. This is just a starting point, and I'd like to pursue some other lines of inquiry after I get a sense of where people are coming from. If you don't feel like answering the questions with some directness that's fine, but I would very much appreciate that the thread not be derailed with some other type of generalized commentary.

For clarification I'm using the dictionary definition of consciousness (1+2 especially), but if you have some other way to describe what it is please feel free to explain.

1. Is consciousness a "post filtered" event? By this I mean is consciousness the experience we have after it has been received and processed by the brain?

It's a problematic question, because even under NM, the brain has to be taken to "modulate" or transform a primitive version of experiential aptitude. However, this need not mean, and I certainly think that it DOES NOT mean, that conscius beings exist post- or exo-brain.

2. Is there something other than this (#1), and what are some examples of it?

There are no capable agents outside of the space-time organic process, in my opinion. All supposed examples of such actually reduce to activities that known physical and living agents are more than capable of, therefore the argument doesn't stand up.
3. Is there a correlation between the brain and consciousness?


A living brain simply is the consciousness it expresses, it my opinion. So: "absolutely."
4. Do changes in brain state, via alteration, damage, or any other kind of event effect consciousness?

Absolutely, by (3). And this of course is exactly what we see.
5. The very existence of consciousness seems to be the go-to phenomenon when arguing against a materialist position. Are there any other tangible examples of something that is not physical in nature (and not related to consciousness) that carries the same weight?

No.
 
I would like opinions on the questions below. This is just a starting point, and I'd like to pursue some other lines of inquiry after I get a sense of where people are coming from. If you don't feel like answering the questions with some directness that's fine, but I would very much appreciate that the thread not be derailed with some other type of generalized commentary.

For clarification I'm using the dictionary definition of consciousness (1+2 especially), but if you have some other way to describe what it is please feel free to explain.
The linked to definition is:
1
a : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself

b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact

c : awareness; especially : concern for some social or political cause
2
: the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : mind

And using that definition I don't see the validity in your questions. That definition also lead to the confusion shown in your #5 where you seem to think that when people posit consciousness as primary, they are using that definition. What you define is more accurately described as human perception.
 
1. For dualism and a filter hypothesis I would say yes.

2. Not unless you are without a brain. NDE Is an example if you accept it.

3. Yes.

4. Yes.

5. Yes. Information Is not matter or energy and quantum information has no physical medium. Although information is related to consciousness as the experience of information. Our subjective world is not physical, so nothing is unrelated to consciousness, it is all in consciousness.
 
Can you give an example of a quantum process that "doesn't have a physical medium"?

That does not even make sense. Matter cannot explain matter. At the foundation of reality exists only abstract relationships.
I take a page from the foremost quantum experimentalist in the world. Information is more fundamental than matter. That is what the experiments indIcate.

Quantum teleportation. Since information is not matter or energy it can transcend space and time. A physical medium would be bound by the speed of light. It isn't.
 
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That does not even make sense. Matter cannot explain matter. At the foundation of reality exists only abstract relationships.
I take a page from the foremost quantum experimentalist in the world. Information is more fundamental than matter. That is what the experiments indIcate.

Quantum teleportation. Since information is not matter or energy it can transcend space and time. A physical medium would be bound by the speed of light. It isn't.

Quantum teleportation has a physical medium (atoms and photons). This is really exactly the same issue as the information in books having a physical medium. Note: my point isn't that mass and momenta are enough to form a description of the information in a book. My point is that information cannot exist without a physical medium.
 
Quantum teleportation has a physical medium (atoms and photons). This is really exactly the same issue as the information in books having a physical medium. Note: my point isn't that mass and momenta are enough to form a description of the information in a book. My point is that information cannot exist without a physical medium.

No that is not true. The photon (what you are calling a medium) does not go anywhere it is destroyed at one end and re created at the other. It is the information that is transfered. To transfer information physically requires matter and energy and is constrained by the speed of light.

Quantum information preceeds matter. Take it up with Professor Zeilinger.
 
No that is not true. The photon (what you are calling a medium) does not go anywhere it is destroyed at one end and re created at the other. It is the information that is transfered. To transfer information physically requires matter and energy and is constrained by the speed of light.

Quantum information preceeds matter. Take it up with Professor Zeilinger.

You are conflating two different things. Physicality and nonlocality. I didn't say anything about information "going" somewhere; you did. What I said was, and it remains true...there are no information processes that are not necessarily bound to physical processes. In other words, they are a behavior of physical processes.
 
No. You are wrong. You are conflating the photon as being a medium of information transfer. The information does go somewhere. In physical reality a medium and energy is required to transfer it, and it is bound by physical laws such as the speed of light. This is not the case. That is why it is called teleportation after all. There is no medium in entanglement. Take it up with Zeilinger. I am not interested in your erroneous opinions of physics, I have heard them before.

I know you are religiously devoted to NM. Just take phyicalism and sprinkle some proto mind. :eek: Sorry but realism is in danger too.
 
No. You are wrong. You are conflating the photon as being a medium of information transfer. The information does go somewhere. In physical reality a medium and energy is required to transfer it, and it is bound by physical laws such as the speed of light. This is not the case. That is why it is called teleportation after all. There is no medium in entanglement. Take it up with Zeilinger. I am not interested in your erroneous opinions of physics, I have heard them before.
The bold and underlined sentences appear to contradict each other. Then you say there is no medium in entanglement, even though the medium is the entangled particles themselves.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I just don't understand what you're trying to say.

~~ Paul
 
No. You are wrong. You are conflating the photon as being a medium of information transfer. The information does go somewhere. In physical reality a medium and energy is required to transfer it, and it is bound by physical laws such as the speed of light. This is not the case. That is why it is called teleportation after all. There is no medium in entanglement. Take it up with Zeilinger. I am not interested in your erroneous opinions of physics, I have heard them before.

I know you are religiously devoted to NM. Just take phyicalism and sprinkle some proto mind. :eek: Sorry but realism is in danger too.

What do you think is entangled, exactly, if not a physical system? Again, there are no quantum processes that do not happen in physical systems. It's kind of a pointless debate. You are simply mistaken, if that's the claim you are trying to make...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it isn't.

Hint: this also isn't about "realism."
 
The claim is not mine but from the worlds leading quantum experimentalist. It is called the quantum information interpretation. take it up with him. Information is a deeper level of reality.

Because quantum physics desrcibes physical reality! I said nothing of the system but the information. It is information transfered from one system to a new system. It makes no sense to say quantum information is physical Because it is what describes physicality. Alas matter is notman explanation for matter. It is the collapse that defines what is actualized in physicality. Physical laws are not made of matter, nor are they produced by particles. It is the particles that obey the physical laws. It is the information that is the descriptor of physical reality.


Realism is the notion that there is a concrete reality outside of consciousness. Hint, it has everything to do with it.

And hint this thread is not about you and your dogma, I did not impose my opinions on any one elses answers.
 
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